Outsider: Epiphany
by miikaawaadizi
Summary: A human uses what she's learned from Predator encounters and claims her own hunting grounds on Earth. Predators are using the same grounds for a kainde amedha trial. Nothing goes according to anyone's plans.
1. Luna Venatorius

**Luna Venatorius**

The sound was unmistakable, but no more welcome for that – high pitched keening warring against low toned growling, unnaturally loud in the night reverberating from the buildings towering around her. Coming up on an alleyway, thoughts of just walking by left her mind as silvered metal punched through the corner of the wall just ahead, the tip coming to a halt inches in front of her face as the long shaft caught in the brickwork. With a mental shrug, she leaned forwards to peer around and into the gloom, unsurprised at what she saw.

The insipid yellow glow of the few working lamps high up gave a sickly tint to splashes of fluorescing green fluid covering the walls and puddled on the ground, but clearly illuminated two bodies lying motionless. Like faerie fire, the greenish liquid coated and outlined the shapes of figures still standing, one pale, tall and bulky, five others just as tall, yet coal-black, slender and sinuous, trying to surround the pale one. Curious despite herself, she sighed, leaning against the wall next to the spear that had come perilously close to hitting her blindly, her arms crossed lightly over her chest.

Spraying drops of the green ichor, the bulky figure moved fast, twisting and turning. The slender figures darted in and out, trying to come close, long arms reaching, but flinching back each time as the weapons in the hands of the first blocked their approach. Clinically, she looked at the pale figure's movements, and shook her head a little. Experience had already played out the rest of the scene in her mind, and she recognized the signs of the stocky one slowing down. Imperceptibly, to be sure, but she knew that it would only be a matter of moments. The hunter had become the prey.

She watched a sudden spray of more green from the hunter, while she absently reached over to the spear lodged in the wall, pressing against it in a peculiar way. With a metallic _schick_, the ends retracted inwards, the now much shorter length of metal coming free from the wall. She brought it to her side just as a screeching cry came from the battle ahead. In an instant, the remaining hunter had brought its right arm up and over in a wide sweeping curve, bright silver suddenly slashing forwards from its forearm to carve across the elongated matte-black head of one of its attackers. In a crash of flailing limbs the dark alien went down, kicking and screaming an undulating cry of agony, but there was no respite for the hunter as the other four night-black figures pounced forwards, taking advantage of the momentary opening.

As the remaining aliens swarmed the hunter and they fell to the ground in a tangle, she gripped the shaft in her hand in that strange way, and the ends telescoped out once more with incredible speed, angled downwards in front of her. There was a pause, then a rasping hiss from behind her, the spear tipping as the weight of the figure that had dropped down behind her came to rest on it, the razored end pierced through the head from bottom to top. Another squeeze of the shaft retracted the spear back to dormancy, and the alien that had impaled itself finished its journey to the floor, an acrid stench accompanying the soft thump as it sprawled, dead. Her eyes never left the drama reaching its inevitable conclusion inside the alley.

Another of the black aliens was down, unmoving. Of the three remaining, one had lost an arm, but it didn't seem to care. One was straddling the hunter now, trying to come close, swift flickers of movement from the front of its head darting in, the hunter frantically trying to twist out of the way as it reached across to fumble with a blocky shape on its forearm. A segmented tail curved up then dropped, impaling the hapless hunter through the shoulder, pinning it to the ground. A howl came from the alleyway, echoing off the walls and spilling out into the deserted street, to be cut off sharply as a head came down one final time, neon green fountaining up. The armless creature gave a hiss of victory with its surviving kin, then fell to the ground, twitching weakly.

A bitter tasting mist began to permeate her senses, both from behind and from the alleyway. With a shrug, she pressed herself off the wall, gripped the spear once more to extend it, and entered the alleyway, walking purposefully towards the scene of carnage. The two aliens still standing turned their heads towards her, the one that had pinned the hunter and delivered the death blow gave a warning hiss, pulling its tail free from the body underneath and rearing up. As she drew level with one of the hunters that had fallen before she arrived, she crouched down, then straightened up once more, not taking her eyes from the survivors of the battle. She allowed a mirthless grin to cross her face briefly before she started forwards once more, idly beginning to rock the spear in her right hand, her left now holding a sword-length blade.

The two aliens still standing stepped tentatively towards her, but were startled when she suddenly broke into a sprint directly at them. With a quick swipe at one that elicited a screech of pain, she ducked under the arms of the other and embedded the spear into the forearm of the last fallen hunter, electric sparks arcing from the device it had been reaching for at the end. Without pausing, she released the spear and dropped into a roll over the fallen warrior's legs, coming back up to her feet just beyond, a second sword in her hand. Now her grin was for real, as she reversed the blades to rest against the inside of her forearms, the two slender figures turning fast to face her again.

The position of the blades seemed to make them invisible to the aliens as they came for her, their reaching arms met with razor honed metal that cut deeply into their hands and wrists. Dark droplets landed on the concrete, pitting it and producing more of the bitter tasting mist, but she continued to parry the reaching hands with the blades, stepping backwards and turning from side to side to avoid the menacing jaws of her attackers. The one that had finished the last hunter pressed in close, jaws gaping as something shot out of its mouth towards her face, then reared back in pain as she brought one arm across to block, severing the flesh just behind the row of razor teeth that had been aimed for her. Seeing the creature rear back, she quickly reversed one of the swords once more, and brought it upwards to pin its lower jaw to the roof of its mouth, the blade penetrating deep into the head itself.

Without another thought, she released her grip on the blade, but was slammed by the weight of the remaining unharmed attacker. Falling to the ground on her back, she gasped as white hot streaks of pain ran down her sides, claws raking at her. She tucked her legs up pressing her feet against the chest of the other, and let the momentum of the roll take her almost over backwards before pushing her legs out with a loud cry of defiance. The alien on top of her found itself airborne over her head, unable to stop itself being thrown, before landing hard on a stack of pallets, splintering it to firewood.

As it shook its head, trying to regain its feet, she finished the roll and came smoothly back up. Her eyes looked on at the last remaining threat, and she waited as it started coming towards her, fast! Just as it was about to reach her, arms outstretched, she spun around on one foot, moving to one side of the onrush, and brought the arm holding the sword around in a flat arc. The creature's head, severed at the neck, dropped to the ground beside her, but the body took a few more moments to realize this, traveling a few more steps before plowing into the ground.

She stood there for a few moments, her body still in the position it reached at the end of the killing swing, before slowly straightening up, her breathing heavy but steady. She glanced at the corpses littering the alleyway, and noticed the alien that had lost an arm was still twitching. Before she could move towards it to finish it off, it stiffened and gave a final gasp as a hole appeared in its head. The air shimmered and like a periscope emerging from the sea, a spear started to be revealed. She stood motionless as it became fully visible, looking much the same as the one she had used, followed by the figure of the one holding it – another hunter. As the newcomer turned its head towards her, she bowed her head, bringing her hands across her chest in an obvious salute.

The warrior before her differed from the fallen ones. Taller, with darker skin, it was dressed more ornately. It looked at her for a long few seconds, then inclined its head a fraction. Taking this as her cue, she broke her salute and moved to the head of the slender creature she had decapitated.

The new hunter pulled the spear free of the armless alien, and looked at her curiously, its head cocked to one side while she crouched down beside the head she had removed, and began working the sword blade in its mouth, prying loose four of the metallic looking teeth there. She seemed uncaring when the air shimmered again either side of her, bringing into view two more hunters. They seemed uncertain of what to do, and looked to the darker figure, querulous clicks and growls coming from somewhere underneath steel gray masks., but it just kept watching her as she completed her grizzly task.

As she straightened up, one of the two hunters flanking her clicked something that made her eyes narrow fractionally, but she gave no other indication she had heard (or understood) it. Stepping forwards towards the darker one again, she reversed the sword blade once more, the hilt lying on her open palm, and after a brief glance at her face, it was accepted. She nodded a bow once more, and began to walk towards the alley entrance, but suddenly stopped and turned to face the hunter that had made the clicking sounds she had reacted to.

She pointed to an obviously human skull dangling from the warrior's waist, and calmly said "If humans were really inferior, that would make your trophies have no value. There's a good reason they are valued. I suggest you remember it. Overconfidence is dangerous.". The hunter stepped back, stunned by this remark, but she said nothing more, and started walking towards the entrance to the alleyway again. The hunter made as if to follow, but a sharp noise from the first one gave it pause. More clicks and growls were exchanged between the three, but she paid it no attention, and as she rounded the corner back onto the street, the three had already begun to busy themselves around the site of the battle.


	2. Medica, cura te ipsum!

**Medica, cura te ipsum!**

It wasn't until she was back in her apartment, the door bolted shut and the windows all closed, that she was able to fully relax. Then the pain of her wounds made itself known with a vengeance. With a groan, she headed towards the bathroom, pausing at the coffee table in the living room to click on the TV to a local news channel, and pull a small black pouch out of her waistband. Tossing the pouch and remote control onto the table, she continued on, and started trying to lift the remains of her dark shirt over head head. The gouges in her sides started to open up again, and she gave up with a sigh, feeling all of her thirty-odd years ("It's twenty five, dammit!") very much at that moment. Leaving the bathroom door open so she could listen to the television, she started rummaging around in the medicine cabinet.

"Damned thing's ruined anyway. I liked this one, too." she grumbled under her breath as she started cutting the shirt away with a pair of scissors she pulled out of the cabinet.

Encrusted with both her blood and the still luminescent green hunter's blood that she had rolled through during the fight, the tattered remains of the shirt fell to the floor, accompanied by winces as she peeled some sections away that had stuck to her wounds. Every now and again, she removed small blades from their concealment in the shirt, dropping it into the sink with a tink of steel on ceramic. Once the shirt had been removed, she tossed the scissors onto the back of the sink, then bent over stiffly to remove her pants and shoes, more blades being removed and deposited with the rest. Once she was completely undressed, she straightened up and loosened the cord holding her hair back at the nape of her neck, releasing it to cascade down her back in dark braids.

As she turned the sink on to wash off the blood that caked most of the blades she'd removed from her clothing, she closed the cabinet door and gazed at her reflection, steel blue eyes peered back out from an unremarkable face, framed either side by the hanging braids of hair died a subdued burgundy. She could see damp spots of the green blood trapped in the braids, along with dirt and mud that she must have picked up in the fight. She turned off the sink faucets, letting the water drain away, while her eyes looked down, checking for any unrealized injuries in the mirror, before she looked down at herself to see the extent of the damage the last alien had caused.

The gouges in her sides weren't as bad as they could have been, and although they would leave scars, they would cross over existing ones, of which there were plenty. She sized up the cuts in her skin professionally as she turned on the bathtub, decided that they would probably not need more than bandages, and finished stripping her gore stained clothes off with relief. When the bathtub had a few inches of water lining the bottom, and lowered herself in gingerly, and started to wash the encrusted blood, dirt, grime, and more of the green fluid off.

It took three changes of the water before she finally felt clean, and the scabs that had been trying to form in her wounds had been washed away, leaving thin trickles of her blood seeping into the water to stain it pink each time. Every few minutes she paused as the news anchor would announce the next story, but went back to trying to clean the gore off each time, the story not interesting her. Once she realized she'd reached the point of diminishing returns with her efforts, she climbed out and dried herself off carefully, then reached underneath the sink cabinet and pulled out an assortment of rolled up bandages, dressing pads, and a curved metallic box that she set on the floor beside her, as she lowered herself to sit cross legged on the cool tiles.

She pressed a discolored panel on the side of the box, and it opened out like the petals of a flower, displaying a compact set of dull gun-gray objects that looked disturbingly like medical things, but wrong somehow. Reaching into the box, she unclipped a vial from its mounting, and popped the cap, before pouring some of the blue liquid inside onto a dressing pad. Visibly steeling herself, she pressed the pad against the gouge on one side, and let out a scream of pain.

Eventually, as the pain eased to a dull roar, she slumped back, tears in her eyes. When she removed her hand, the pad remained in place, stuck to the wound, and she repeated the process, her screams lessening with each new application, until all of the wounds were dressed. The outside of the pads was a mixture of blue and red colors, the fluid she had poured onto the dressings and her own blood seeping through. Quickly, she wrapped gauze around her torso over the dressings, pinning each roll tightly, then reached back to the metallic box to withdraw a short tube that fit in the palm of her hand. She pressed one end of the tube against her stomach, and pushed on the other end with her thumb. Her back arched but the only sound she could make was a breathless gasp, and after a few seconds she slumped back down to the tiled floor one final time, withdrawing the tube to reveal a long thick needle that had sprung out of the end into her.

It took her a few minutes to recover from the injection, but the voice of the news anchor announcing "breaking news" broke her out of her exhausted reverie. She quickly she recapped the now near-empty vial of blue liquid, and replaced it and the injection tube back in the metallic box. She closed the petals of the box back up, returning the whole thing to its place under the sink, threw the remains of the dressings into the trash, grabbed her dressing gown from the back of the bathroom door, and tried to rush into the living room as she put it on, managing only a quick hobble instead as her body reminded her that she wasn't exactly in good shape to be moving fast at the moment.

"... are still not releasing details, however a spokesman for the department confirmed that the bodies found did appear to be mutilated in a similar fashion to previous murders in the area over recent months." She stiffly lowered herself into the couch, and watched as the screen switched from the closeup of the news anchor to shots obviously taken earlier in the evening. Men and women wearing windbreakers saying FBI, DEA, ATF, as well as cops from the local police department were coming in and out of a brownstone building. As the camera panned, several ambulances could be seen, their paramedic crews waiting around obviously unnecessary for their usual role. The voice of the reporter took over as the camera tried to find something interesting to focus on.

"According to sources, at least seven bodies were found this evening in this building. All of the dead are rumored to be members of local organized crime, although police are not releasing their identities yet." The camera switched to a close-up shot of a blond reporter, bundled up against the cold weather, as she continued her report, referring to the notebook she held in one hand often. "The previous killings have all followed the same pattern, each of the dead died violently, and at some time after their death their spinal columns were severed at the neck. Police still refuse to speculate as to any connection between these deaths tonight and the prior murders, but it's likely that the same thing has happened here."

A snort from the couch. "Way to go on the 'investigative reporting' there, girl. Pulitzer material for sure!"

The reporter continued on, oblivious to the scornful remark. "This would bring the total number of murders of organized crime figures in the city over the past six months to over fifty, raising concerns amongst the community of a turf war between organizations. Reporting from downtown, I'm Kylie McCullough, Channel 7 News, ..." She clicked off the TV with the remote, and tossed it casually back onto the coffee table. She knew there was no point in watching to see if there would be any news of the other hunt that night, the hunters would, she knew, be very careful to leave no trace behind of those particular deaths. She reached over and picked up the pouch she had left on the table when she got home, and opened it up. Tipping the contents out, she looked at a handful of teeth, four silvery ones, many more white ones, thoughtfully.

"Now why would there be kainde amedha inside the city?" she wondered to herself, idly rolling the teeth in the palm of her hand. "A hunt here would be too much a risk of exposure." After a few moments lost in thought, she snatched her hand closed, stood up and walked over to the bedroom. Inside, she moved towards one wall, pressed against it in two places, and stepped back as a soft _click_ was heard and a hidden door pivoted open. Reaching up into the gloom inside, she pulled on a cord attached to a light, then crouched down to open a drawer, then selected one of the several smaller compartments it was divided into. She dropped the teeth from her hand into the the compartment, pushed the drawer closed, and as she straightened up she allowed her hand to idly stroke the stylized gun-metal gray mask that lay on the shelf above. She looked around the inside of the converted closet at the blades and other weapons hanging there, a curious mix of silvered steel and blades made of the same gray metal as the mask, before shrugging and closing the door, clicking it into place.

Returning to the bathroom to collect the blades from the sink, she went back to the couch, picked a movie channel to watch, and set about drying off the blades with a towel, checking each one for damage and setting them on the coffee table when satisfied with them. A few she placed to one side, mentally noting that she would need to sharpen them again before her next night hunting, all the while thinking about the events tonight and the presence of the hunters, and the aliens. Eventually her blades were dried, and she tried to get comfortable leaning back into the couch, her wounds beginning to itch like fire ants under her skin.

"Nothing I can do about it tonight, it can wait until tomorrow." she mused. "Shit happens."


	3. Embolii

**Embolium i - Bis repetita non placent**

"... McCullough, Channel 7 News ..." The voice was cut off as a large finger stabbed at the remote control, blanking the TV screen, before hurling the inoffensive device at the wall. With an explosive "God dammit!" the man turned to face the other occupants of the room.

"Another seven of my guys murdered!" he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth, his face purple with apoplectic rage. The others looked on impassively, they knew the kind of histrionics the speaker was renowned for, and if the truth be told, they themselves had been almost as furious at some point in recent months. The speaker paced up and down for a minute, kicking over a chair as he tried to find some outlet for his anger.

They were meeting in the most secure room of the compound, bare walls and unshaded lightbulbs cold and harsh. Gathered together, they represented the "ruling class" of the city's organized crime. Though such gatherings were rare, given the natural mistrust they had for each other, they had decided long ago that it was wise to occasionally meet to discuss items "of mutual interest". Usually, such items were deciding on the deaths of people, either members of an organization that had wronged another one, or highly placed cops that weren't playing along with turning a blind eye, and whilst this meeting was also about death, it wasn't quite the same thing.

"So what's going on? Is this a takeover?" Issoti slammed his hand down on the table so hard it rocked. "We're all losing people, so it ain't us!"

Monti Issoti represented the various Mafia groups in the city, under his "famiglia" or family. His reputation for flying into uncontrollable rages was legendary, and rumors still floated around of his handling of a local kid that had made the terminal mistake of scratching the side of his car accidentally while skateboarding. Issoti had taken him out to a disused airfield nearby, tied the kid to his skateboard, attached it to the back of the car the kid had scratched, then driven up and down the runway several times until there was nothing left but shreds on the end of the chain.

"So what do we do about this?" Wen Zhang was the youngest one present, and the most disliked. The Chinese Tongs leader was considered arrogant, brash, and overbearing by the rest, quite an accomplishment in and of itself given his peer group. Issoti's reputation for rage was easily surpassed by Wen's reputation for sheer brutality.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm just about done with having someone come along and carve up my people! I've worked too hard to build this up, I'll be damned if I'm going to watch it all get taken down by someone else!" Issoti snarled back.

"You aren't the only one to have lost personnel to these attacks!" Wen retorted hotly, his temper beginning to rise in response to Issoti's.

"We're all losing people equally. It seems obvious that whoever is doing this is trying to wear us down as a whole, rather than individually." Standing in for the Yakuza, Maeda Ito was the newest member of the group, having taken over the Yakuza operations in the city a few months ago when the old boss had been murdered in the same way as the Mafia soldiers tonight had been.

"It makes sense, keep us all off balance so none of us can take advantage of the killings to increase our own control. That way it's easier for them to come in and finish us all off and take over." Issoti pounced on Ito's statement like a drowning man grasping at anything that looks like it will float. This wasn't lost on the other two present, but other than a brief glance at each other, they said nothing about how desperate Issoti sounded.

"I'm not entirely sure that we're dealing with another group trying to replace any of us." Ito noted clinically.

"Why not? We're all being hit, hard. If it isn't someone trying to take over, why are they doing it? It can't be the cops, between us we own the entire force." Issoti's voice started to rise again, but Ito tried to calm the Mafia boss down by keeping calm and analytical.

"At this stage, we don't need to know why they're doing it. We simply need to find out who they are, and eliminate them." Ito had the curious distinction of still being in possession of all of his fingers, quite an accomplishment in an organization that expected you to sever one of your own if you caused offense. It was his attention to detail, his calmness and ability to think his way through problems had saved his fingers, and his life in some instances, on many occasions.

His skills were being tested to the limit by the volatile Italian though. "Now why didn't I think of that? Damn, I must be getting old or something. WHAT DO YOU THINK WE'RE DOING HERE?"

Ito realized that trying to maintain any semblance of calm was a lost cause right now, and shot back with "You know that losing your temper will not help you?" He was well known as being fond of using poison to kill people, and he wondered idly for a moment just how difficult it would be to slip some into the prodigious amounts of pasta this fool ate.

"It's not like anything else is helping us either right now. We're losing a war and we don't even know who we're fighting yet!" Issoti's bulk, a contribution of the amount of pasta he ate, didn't allow for his voice to become shrill, but that was likely the only reason. Both Ito and Wen thought Issoti tried to hard to be the quintessential mafia boss, but neither of them understood that, having been brought up on bad TV shows and movies, Issoti truly believed that he was behaving in the finest traditions of the mafia.

Ito tried once more to rationalize his idea to Issoti. "As I suggested, the first step is to find out who our enemy is. Once we know that, we will have a better idea of how to deal with them."

"And how do you suggest we find out? Magic? Ouija board? Psychics?" Issoti's scorn was obvious, but he was beginning to calm down, and returned to his seat to glower at Ito.

"I was thinking more about the idea of bait."

Wen looked up in curiosity. "Bait?"

"Yes. We know that our enemies are somehow finding our larger establishments. So, we simply need to create one, and monitor it. Eventually, they will go there and attack it, and we will finally get to see who our mysterious enemies are."

Issoti wasn't to be outdone in this 'planning session', and brought up a surprising point "You know that whoever is in that place is going to end up dead, just like the rest, right?"

Ito's reply was quite calm, and equally as cold, showing the ruthlessness that had earned him his inheritance of his predecessor's position.

"Of course, however such sacrifices are necessary."

"Then what do we do?"

"Then we kill them, of course." Wen remarked coldly. His preferred method of killing was to beat people to death using his bare hands, or any handy solid object he found nearby. He seemed to revel in the sheer destruction he wreaked on the bodies of those he eventually killed, but none of them ever went quietly to that death, and all were begging for mercy, or more commonly for mercy killing, long before he allowed them to die.

Issoti thought about this for a minute, then made his pronouncement as if this was all his idea to begin with.

"Fine, let's do it. Who gets to pick the sacrificial lambs?"

"To be fair, I think perhaps each of us should donate equal amounts of resources." Ito responded calmly. He knew that the wisest course of action, which naturally he would come up with, would be the one the others would follow.

He had his own plans about the outcome, however.

**

* * *

Embolium ii - Ubi maior, minor cessat**

"Honored Elder, I still don't understand."

The red-tint to the walls of the chamber would have made the pale skins of the occupants look somewhat sickly to human eyes, but to the heat-sensitive vision of the hunters, it was warm, inviting, and comfortable. The four tall rocky pillars squaring off the center of the area rose out of the low-lying vapor mist like sentinels, guarding and bordering this place. Between each of the pillars, two hunters rested, seven of them crouched easily in positions of attention, the eighth standing as it spoke with the taller hunter, who stood in the center of the arena their placement created. The Elder turned to the one that had spoken, clicking a response to the bewildered guttural growls.

"If someone attacked you after a hunt while you were collecting the trophies of your prey, would you consider them honorable?"

The hunter cocked its head to one side for a moment, as it considered the question. Like all of the hunters, it was tall, over seven feet in human terms, although the leader topped it by at least another foot of height. The hunter's pale yellow skin was mottled with brown and dark purple, near black blotches, and it flexed its arm muscles almost unconsciously while it thought of an answer.

"No, but this wasn't Yautja, it's just a _pyode amedha_ ..."

The Elder snorted, the four crab-like mandibles surrounding its mouth twitching inwards, before it started reciting a list scornfully.

"A human who successfully hunted three _kainde amedha_, and knows of Yautja enough to have neutralized a destruct device, to use our weapons, A human who recognized and acted with respect to an elder, and returned something she did not earn for a trophy. Knows enough of us to know _of_ trophies, and to remind us of the reason why we take them, even ones from humans, her own kind."

One of the other hunters stood quickly, the braids on its head swinging wildly from the sudden movement.

"She deserved to die for her words! Female or not, she took up weapons and so declared herself to be prey, and no human should dare to criticize a Yautja!" it angrily blurted, before looking at the shocked faces of its companions. Shamefacedly, it went down to one knee in a gesture of submission, mortified at this breach of etiquette. The Elder looked to the muscle-flexing hunter, which shook its head imperceptibly. The Elder turned and regarded the impulsive hunter for a moment, its close and deep-set eyes cold and calculating, before responding.

"Calm yourself. You are correct, she has removed any right to not be hunted by taking up weapons, however I believe her words were meant to warn us not to underestimate _her_. If she knows of Yautja customs, it is possible that she wished to remove an advantage she may have held over us when we hunt her, not taking her seriously as worthy prey." The impulsive hunter nodded slowly, all the time gently fingering the eye sockets of one of the human skulls it wore on its waist.

One of the other hunters rose to its feet, and both the muscle flexing and impatient hunters crouched down. It seemed that the protocol for this meeting was for each hunter to stand and wait for permission to speak..

"Why would she throw away such an advantage, Elder?" it asked, curiously. The Elder answered the question promptly, but the undertones to its voice showed its thought was hesitant, almost as if guessing.

"Perhaps so that the hunt would be more of a worthy challenge for her? It would be an act worthy of a Yautja, perhaps she has adopted our ways and simply was behaving properly." The hunter looked skeptical.

"Humans have won hunts in the past, they are still prey." it commenting matter-of-factly. The Elder nodded in agreement, but looked at the impulsive hunter as she replied.

"And one who can best three of the _kainde amedha_ is at the very least honored prey. No, there is something going on. She has met Yautja before, and has learned enough of us to at least show respect and manners. She knew that honor would prevent our hunting her there." The Elder paused, lost in thought. The hunters waited patiently, with respect, until finally it came to a decision.

"I want to know more about her before I decide what shall be done. I would very much like to know how she learned of us, and to determine how much she adheres to our ways, as she seems to do. When I decide that she is to be hunted, you may challenge the others for the right to hunt her, but for now, she is to be considered inviolate. Do any of you wish to challenge my decision on this?"

"No Honored Elder." the hunters chorused.

"Good. Now what is the status of the remaining _kainde amedha_?" The hunter that had been matter of fact about the human's status as prey rose to its feet once more.

"Elder, of the fifteen that were hatched, eight have been slain. We have still been unable to locate where they are nesting, save that it is somewhere in the general area of this night." The Elder nodded.

"And what news on the reason they are here in this city and not where the eggs were sent?"

"We discovered the first stage implanters at the correct location, however we found tracks of some form of large ground vehicle, as well as evidence of a _pyode amedha_ encampment nearby. Following those tracks, and a chemical signature presumably produced by the drive mechanism of the transport, we were led to the area of the hunt last night."

"So you believe the _kainde amedha_ were implanted in humans, who traveled here after they awoke?"

"Yes Elder, that is the most rational explanation." The Elder began pacing up and down within the area enclosed by the pillars and the hunters. It stopped close to one of the pillars, black claw tips of one hand gently stroking across the engraved surface.

"It is a pity that the controlled hunting grounds for this have all been lost. We must find the rest of the hive and hunt them down. I will not be seen as responsible for the loss of an entire planet's worth of hunting grounds." it mused, half to itself.

"Elder?" the Elder turned back to face the matter-of-fact hunter.

"The _kainde amedha_ have no queen yet. It will take time before the absence of one will trigger one of the drones to begins it's metamorphosis to become a queen. We must hunt them down before that metamorphosis can be completed. With a queen producing eggs, they will be able to implant untold numbers of humans, and if the _kainde amedha_ gain a strong enough foothold on this world, _pyode amedha_ will effectively become extinct."

"I understand, Elder. We shall find them."

"I expect nothing less of you. Perhaps ..." The Elder's face took on a definite thoughtful look, its head cocked to one side and eyes staring off into space as if looking for something beyond vision. After a few minutes, the matter-of-fact hunter spoke up deferentially.

"Elder?" The Elder remained silent for a moment longer, and the matter-of-fact hunter was considering asking once more when it finally shook its head a few times.

"A thought, nothing more. Return to your hunt for the _kainde amedha_ nest."

"Yes, Elder" the hunters chorused once more, and with silent grace belying their bulk, they left the chamber to be about their task.

**

* * *

Embolium iii - Tarde venientibus ossa**

The door from the balcony was no challenge. It took a matter of moments for the locks to be bypassed, using tools that would leave no marks behind. Padding softly into the living room of the apartment, it made less noise than the breeze that blew once, rustling the curtains briefly before the door was closed once more.

It paused, listening in the darkness, its senses alive, until it was sure that the figure in the bedroom was deep asleep, then entered. Its gaze rested on the sleeping figure under the covers, sleeping a dreamless sleep punctuated every few minutes with a soft moan of pains, some remembered and some new. Silent as a sigh, a faint ticking noise echoed through the room, but other than a twitch of one leg, it slept on undisturbed by the presence of the intruder.

Gliding across the floor, the shape reached the wall, and after a moment's examination pressed against it, gently, holding it against the rebound of the latches un-clipping. It let the door swing open part way, and gazed inside, adjusting its view until the contents rose into sharp relief, the light outside the apartment giving more than enough illumination to its enhanced sense.

It crouched down and tugged open the drawer below the mask, and ran a finger through the contents of the compartments. It paused in its examination as it came across four shiny objects, noting their newness, before it straightened up once more, closing the drawer. Just before closing the closet door on the secret place, it ran a hand lightly across the surface of the mask, then stepped back, sealing away the secrets within once more.

It took one final look towards the sleeping figure, before turning, fluffing the carpet to hide the pressure marks where it had stood, and retraced its steps to the balcony door. Just as it left the apartment, a soft voice could be barely heard, it was so low. Anyone who had been awake enough, close enough, to hear it, would have taken so long to try and understand what it had said that the figure would have been long gone.

Female, it breathed "not yet".


	4. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur

**Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur**

Daylight streaming in through the window woke her, and with a soft groan she tossed the covers aside, pushing herself around until her feet dangled over the edge of the bed before they landed on the ground. She lay there, half in and half out of bed, still lying on her back staring at the ceiling.

"I _so_ hate the morning after." she muttered darkly into the empty bedroom, then struggled to sit up. She wasn't much surprised that it was an easier maneuver than someone would expect, given her wounds from the night before, but she'd become used to the effectiveness of the blue liquid she'd used last night over the years. She'd used it often enough, after all. As she thought on just how many times she'd needed to resort to it, she remembered the level she had remaining, and that gave her pause. It wasn't like you could just buy it at the local pharmacy, after all.

"Should have taken a kit off one of the dead hunters." she berated herself, she'd known the level of the the blue fluid she had left before she'd gone out, but she knew why she hadn't thought of replenishing her supply from one of the fallen hunters at the time. Truth be known, the moment the Elder had revealed itself she'd stopped thinking and just reacted.

"Maybe I should just go find them, knock on their door, and ask for a refill?" she asked herself with a chuckle, as she finally levered herself up to some semblance of a standing position, and headed towards the bathroom to clean herself up and check her wounds. As she peeled the sweat, blood, and blue fluid-stained bandages away from her torso, she considered her reactions to the Elder, and the other hunters.

She'd known what she was looking at, of course. The Elder's size alone marked it as older, and whilst she hadn't consciously registered them at the time, the number of hunting trophies it had worn marked it as experienced enough to be an Elder. She blinked inwardly a few times as she realized that her instincts had probably saved her life. Part of her cringed away at the implications of her having developed those instincts, but she also felt an inordinate sense of pride. She concentrated on that pride, knowing that she was committed to her path, and that pride might be the only thing that would get her through it.

She winced as she uncovered the dressings, gently removing them as they were freed from the bandages, and looked closely at the angry red scores underneath. Once more the blue liquid had worked its magic, accelerating healing of the damage she'd suffered far better than anything else could have. She regretted that hunter medical technology didn't seem to spend any time on the more mundane issues of wound care, such as reduced scarring (or the concept of painkillers for that matter as far as she could tell), but given the alternatives, she would make do.

She took a quick shower, allowing the hot water to sluice away the smells and stains accumulated during her fitful sleep, and after drying off redressed the wounds with more conventional medical supplies, figuring there probably wouldn't be enough of the blue fluid left to reapply it anyway. It would still take a few days before she would feel 'better' by any stretch of the imagination, but the wounds had been shallow, but she was mobile, and that's what mattered.

It certainly wasn't nearly as bad as her first encounter with _kainde amedha_, the 'hard meat' prized by the hunters, which had resulted in her being impaled through the stomach by a spiked tail, before almost being turned into an alien scooby snack. She shuddered involuntarily at the memory, and wondered once more why the hunters had brought _kainde amedha_ into the city.

She was still mulling it over when she glanced into the living room and noted the time on the VCR's clock. She squealed, and shook herself out of her thoughts, she was going to be late! She rummaged through the drawers and closets in the bedroom for something appropriate to wear, and eventually came up with something that almost looked presentable. She finished her ensemble out with a visit to the hidden closet for a brace of sharp objects, and stumbled back into the living room, trying to remember to put keys in obvious pockets and blades in hidden ones, rather than the other way around.

With a last look around her apartment to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything, she latched the door closed and hurried towards the elevator. If anyone had asked her at that moment which she would have preferred, facing a hive of _kainde amedha_ naked and bare handed, or her destination, she might have honestly gone for the former.

"I hate shopping this close to Christmas!"

* * *

This time they met in more pleasant surroundings, one of the nightclubs controlled by the Yakuza. Each of them had a handful of bodyguards keeping a respectful but watching distance from the group.

"So we're ready?" Issoti asked, gruffly. None of the three had been able to get much sleep during the night, their people even less, and tempers were short, although they were all being extra-polite, given the amount of firepower in the room.

"Yes, we have secured one of the office buildings close to the industrial zone of the city that we ... share." Ito responded, clearly satisfied at the speed with which his plan had been implemented. He pointed to the building blueprint spread out on the table in front of them.

"We have arranged surveillance cameras to monitor the everything that happens surrounding the building. Nothing can get past without being seen. The doors and windows are all security style, with steel shutters that can drop into place instantly. The building had been designed as the data center for an Internet company that went bankrupt, it has a lot of security features we are exploiting."

"Good. What about inside?"

This was Wen's area to talk about. Ito was indisputably the technical expert of the group, while Issoti's people were good at intimidation, but by mutual agreement between the three of them the Tong leader had been placed in control of the security force itself. His people had hard won reputations for brutality rivaling their leader's in many ways, and made very effective dirty fighters.

"The building looks to be a large drug distribution site, we put ten guys in there that are obvious. The fun part is, there's another thirty guys that ain't obvious, as the muscle end, ten from each of us. They're the best we have."

Issoti and Ito nodded in agreement, and for a moment each of them looked at the floor plan, as if willing any flaws to make themselves known right there and then. Shortly, they looked at each other, then Issoti gestured one of his bodyguards over, and gave him instructions. "Have the word put out on the street that we're moved the main drugs operation to the bait house." Issoti looked back at the others, a smug look on his face.

"So now we just wait for them to take it."

* * *

"I keep telling you, it looks just fine!" she pointed out in an exasperated voice.

Lunchtime in the city was always chaotic, but trying to shop at lunchtime with Christmas coming was impossible. It doesn't help when you're shopping with someone who is a total clothes horse!

Marisa had been her friend forever, or at least as far back as either of them bothered to remember, although no-one could ever understand what the two of them had in common. Marisa was shorter, with wispy blond hair that never stayed where it was put, ignoring all efforts and huge quantities of hair spray trying to persuade it otherwise, and although she was older, Marisa looked the much younger of the two.

"Oh come on, you wouldn't tell me the truth even if I looked like a sack of potatoes, and you know it!"

Their tastes were definitely different, too. Marisa was all about soft, frilly clothes, in pastels whenever possible, as opposed to her preference for dark tight fitting pants and shirt. Of course, it was much easier to hide an arsenal in dark, tight fitting, pants and a shirt, but she actually liked the look even outside of its practicality. It suited her moods.

She had to admit, if pushed, that the summer dress Marisa had found in the end of season closeout section of the store wasn't entirely flattering, but she also knew that her friend would likely have the seams picked apart and the material on the plate of Marisa's expensive sewing machine in short order regardless. Marisa never seemed to find clothes that were 'just right' for her, but instead of just making them from scratch, she still insisted on this ritual of dragging anyone and everyone, especially _her_, to every store in town finding clothes that were 'nearly' what she was looking for.

Take this latest bargain for example, she thought to herself. Lightweight cotton, pleated skirt panels, sleeveless. So quintessentially a Marisa-choice, and so obviously unsuitable for anything. A slight breeze and she'd be exposing far more flesh than would be considered legal anywhere, and no protection at all against claws or ...

She brought herself up short angrily. _"What the hell am I thinking?"_ Marisa noticed a frown come across her friend's face and stepped closer, thinking that she was the cause of the look.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I know you'd never lie to me, honest! I was just fooling around." Marisa looked so scared that for a moment she thought her friend would burst into tears, and moved quickly to reassure her.

"No hon, I was just thinking about something else for a second, don't worry about it, OK?" Marisa looked into her friend's eyes deeply, almost uncomfortably, for a second.

"What's wrong babydoll? You've been distracted all day." Marisa grinned impishly. "You having men problems?"

She almost choked. Marisa could shift moods in an instant, without warning, and somehow it always caught her off-guard.

"Jeez girl! That's not it at all, I'm just thinking about stuff!" Marissa laughed, stepped back and twirled, flipping the skirt dangerously high.

"Yeah yeah, I believe you. Honest! I tell you what, let's go get something to eat, maybe that will distract you from whatever is bugging you." She had to grin at Marisa's unshakable happy-go-lucky attitude, and nodded assent. It only took Marisa a few minutes to come back from the changing room, and after she paid for the dress she had been modeling, the friends headed to the food court and the inevitable queue at McDonalds waiting to be served.

She never was able to 'turn off' her awareness of her surroundings, a hunter's ability to sense its environment was one she had developed early on. While they stood in the queue, she started to get one of 'those feelings' – an indefinable feeling that something was wrong around her somehow. Keeping up inane chatter with Marisa, she slowly turned, looking at the people around her casually, her mind cataloging everything about them, trying to see what had set off her instincts. She was unable to locate the source of her unease, but she knew not to discount one of 'those feelings', they were rarely wrong ... and usually meant all hell was about to break loose.

She checked the placement of her weapons, casual movements that seemed innocuous but once done, she knew that all of the hidden objects were in place, and within reach if ... no _when_ ... she needed them. She felt strangely detached from herself, still continuing her banter with Marisa on one level, but on another she had already dropped into the headspace of a hunter.

"Let's go outside to eat? It's way too crowded in here, we'll never find a table." she commented to Marisa as they reached the counter and ordered their food from the harried looking staffer behind it. The part of her mind, the hunter, knew that she would have a better tactical position in the open. Outside, she had much better options, and might spot whatever had triggered her instincts so strongly quicker.

"Sure, it's a nice day, and we can talk more about this man problem you have going on." She laughed, Marisa could be totally single minded about some things.

Once outside, the two friends sat on a low decorative wall bordering the mall entrance, and attacked their food with gusto. Regardless that she was in a state of high awareness, she was also hungry after spending so long wandering the stores. As she ate, she kept watch on the doors into the Mall, but didn't spot anything out of the ordinary about the people leaving and arriving. By the time they finished their food, she wondered if she hadn't just over reacted because of the events of the night before.

"So, spill!" Marisa's demand brought her back to earth and she sighed.

"There is no 'man problem', hon. It's just been a difficult few days, you know?" Marisa looked at her friend, torn between her desire to know more, and not wanting to pry. They were friends because they respected each other's privacy as much as they loved their times together. The awkward silence dragged on, the Marisa stood, brushed herself off, and looked at her friend squarely.

"Well, whatever the problem is babydoll, you know I'm here for you, all you have to do is ask." She looked up at Marisa and smiled softly, nodding her head.

"I know hon. I just have to sort some things out." Marisa nodded, but she wasn't convinced. There was nothing she could do about it at this point, though, so she let it lie as she bent down to pick up the bags full of clothes she'd bought.

"_There you are, you bastards!_" Once Marisa bent down and cleared her friend's line of sight, the watchers were exposed briefly, in the parking lot lounging next to a dark panel van. She knew immediately that they had triggered her instincts, and quickly reviewed her memories of the day so far. "_Yes! They've been tagging along since we left to get food!" _Marisa straightened up, blocking her view again, and she smiled a thin smile as her friend struggled to fit the huge number of bags she was trying to carry into her hands.

"Here, let me take some of those, it's getting late and I have to get back to the apartment anyways." She didn't want to leave Marisa alone, in case she, Marisa, was the target of attention for the two watchers. The glimpse she'd had of one of them gave her no clues as to who they were, or their intentions, just that one was short and rather good looking, and the other was tall, with long grey/white hair and a beard to match. Whatever their intentions were, it had been enough to set off her instincts, and she trusted them to tell her these two were up to no good.

The two friends walked to Marisa's car, a new model four-door job in, of all things, white. As they walked, she watched the reflections in the glass of the parked cars they passed, and caught glimpses of two shadows, paralleling their course through the parking lot. They loaded the bags into the trunk, and Marisa unlocked the car and got in.

"Want to have coffee tonight?" Marisa asked.

"No, I'm thinking I should get some sleep, see if I can relax some. Maybe next week?" Marisa smiled happily.

"Great! Get some rest babydoll ... and whatever is wrong, I know you'll fix it."

"_Oh, I have a feeling that it's going to be fixed real soon."_ she thought, but just grinned as she closed the driver's door to Marisa's car.

As Marisa drove off through the parking lot, she had to think quickly. She could 'feel' the two watchers were still nearby, and she wanted to make sure that she didn't get herself into a position that would limit her options. The hunters the _kainde amedha_ had killed had been caught in the close confined alleyway, and that had led to their downfall. She wasn't going to make the same error, even if her prey was human instead of alien.

Making her decision, she moved off, but instead of being towards her own car, several rows away, she was heading towards the elevators and building that led to the pedestrian bridge above the main highway next to the mall. She could 'feel' the watchers following, but that was what she'd hoped for. As she reached the elevator doors, she sighed with relief, the elevator wasn't there yet. The two men had broken cover and were strolling casually towards her, and as they came up beside her as if to wait for the elevator with her, she gave them a nervous smile.

"_Let the prey think it has the dominant position, play to its ego, make it feel safe and secure."_ The lessons she had been taught so long ago came back to her easily.

The bearded one smiled back, presumably it was meant to be reassuring but the look behind the man's eyes told the truth. She could see a dark purpose there, and in an instant she responded without thinking. She had seen the threat, and knew that this would end one of two ways – Either she would die, or her prey would.

Quicksilver fast, she drew two blades from their places of concealment in her pants legs, and in a move reminiscent of how she had held the hunter's swords the night before, she flipped them reversed to lay along her forearms. She stepped towards bearded prey, and assumed a stance she knew well ... her feet apart, knees slightly bent, her body relaxed yet radiating an aura of violent potential restrained. She crossed her forearms across her chest, bringing the fists up near the opposite shoulder, forming an 'X' in front, and she looked into the eyes of bearded prey. He stepped back, surprise mixing with anger as the smile he had tried to wear melted away, leaving a more accurate expression.

Lust.

The other prey, 'pretty boy' she had tagged him in her mind, stepped around bearded prey but stayed a wary distance away. His face showed concern and nervousness. She got the impression neither of the prey had expected this.

"_The hunter becomes the prey"_ she recited in her mind, her mind idling, waiting for the dance to begin that would end with blood spilled. The idea of trying to get away, to call for help, or even to try to defuse the situation and talk her prey out of being stupid never even crossed her mind. Bearded prey spoke up then, a deep gravelly voice, as if he had smoked cigars for too long.

"Lady, you're making a big mistake. We're not going to hurt you. Why don't you hand those over before you end up hurting yourself?" She looked into his eyes, and for a moment bearded prey faltered in his attempt to intimidate her. He saw something inside her eyes that shouldn't be there – calmness. He tried a different tack.

"We just want your pocket book and your car keys, and maybe a little fun." Bearded prey reached his hand out confidently, trying to force her compliance through the ease of the act. She waited, standing passive, and bearded prey's confidence grew, he stepped closer, hand still outstretched. Another step. Another.

_There! In range!_

She pushed forwards on one leg, pivoting around as her arms moving in a blur, extending, the deadly steel hidden behind her forearms. Deftly, she changed her angle and brought one arm up as if making an uppercut punch, and the blade sliced through the bearded prey's wrist without difficulty, severing it to fall on the ground, twitching. Bearded prey looked at the stump on the end of his arm, as she completed her pivot, a full 360 degrees, and came back to rest in the same stance she had started from. It had taken less than a second, but the blood pulsing from bearded prey's stump painted the floor with the snapshot of the effects.

Pretty boy prey stared at bearded prey aghast, then looked at her, still waiting patiently. He raised his hands level with his chest, pushing them forwards in a warding gesture as if to push her away, and backed up slowly.

"Hey, I didn't do anything, lady! I'm out of this, I ain't part of it!" As pretty boy prey backed up, bearded prey was still standing there, now wrapping his hand at the end of the stump trying to stem the bleeding. A low moan escaped through his lips, a wail of desperation and pain, as realization set in as to what had happened. He slumped to his knees on the ground and started rocking back and forth, the low moan continuing, as pretty boy prey looked at her, true terror in his eyes. She stared back, impassively, and he lost his nerve and fled back the way they had come, fumbling for the car keys in his pocket. She watched and waited as he reached the dark van, barely visible, that she had seem them beside originally, until he climbed in, started the engine and gunned it, heading away.

Only then did she move, crouching down in front of bearded prey. Tears streaked his cheeks, and he looked up at her, confused and scared.

"W ... w ... why? We were just looking to have a little fun. Y ... you didn't have to do this!" He asked tremulously, holding up his stump at the end. The bleeding had slowed down, his thumb and fingers were pressing against the major blood vessels, slowing the loss. She ignored the question, instead reaching forwards to look for something under his jacket. Slowly she withdrew it, a gun. A large gun, at that. She held it up in front of him, her finger through the trigger guard.

"Homo homini lupus est." she softly said to her prey, and grinned, ferally. "It's Latin, it means 'man is as a wolf to man'. You planned on hunting me and my friend for your sport. Now I hunt you for mine. Fair play, isn't it?" She rose up, as he tried to spit at her.

"You can take your latin wolves and go screw them, you bitch!. You're gonna die for what you did!" He tried to stagger up, and she waited patiently until he had regained his feet before she moved again. Bearded prey's gasps as the steel sliced through flesh and bone reached her ears at the same time the metallic clatter of the gun hitting the ground did, but she ignored them, concentrating solely on her destruction of this prey before her.

The first pass opened up his stomach, and scored a line down his hitherto undamaged arm. As bearded prey bent forwards from the attacks, the blue-green contents of his stomach began to slither out, to coil in front of him.

The second pass she moved past him, turning and severing the tendons behind his knees. As he crashed to the floor, still managing to stay upright, she raised her arms high, before bringing them straight down. The tips of the blades entered either side of his head, shearing through the bone and embedding themselves in his chest cavity. She released the hilts of the blades, and stalked around to face him once more.

He stared up at her, blankly, the pain shutting down his consciousness, his thoughts ... his life ebbed away in time with the faltering beat of his heart, his breath coming in ragged bubbling gasps as the blades had bisected his lungs.

It took him a minute more to die, a long minute with her staring straight into his eyes. Slowly, his body leaned forwards, until his forehead rested against the cool cement ground, and she let out a long sigh. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a multi tool, flicking it so the pliers came out of one end. Grimly, she reached into bearded prey's blood-filled mouth, and removed his incisor teeth. She placed them in a cloth pouch hanging from her belt, then withdrew the two long blades from his shoulders. She fought hard against the urge to scream in exultation as they came free, and as she looked down at the body, she briefly considered completing the ritual.

With a snort of disgust, she wiped the blades on the body's jacket instead. _"This one doesn't deserve the honor,"_ she raged, inwardly. _"He wanted to prey on the weak. He can lay there as he is, let others see his shame."_ With that, she straightened up, and looked around to make sure she had left few clues behind, then sheathed the blades back in their hidden pockets. Casually, she walked back to her car, and drove off.

She didn't even notice that through the whole incident, in her mind she had considered them simply as prey.

Neither did she notice the shimmer in the air on the roof of the mall.


	5. Exitus acta probat

**Exitus acta probat**

She was driving fast, dangerously fast she knew. She looked at her hands, finally noticing the blood that stained them and her clothes, and with great effort slowed her speed down. She couldn't afford to get pulled over, she'd have no way to answer awkward questions. It would only be a matter of time before bearded prey's body was discovered, and then there'd be lots of people wanting to ask _lots_ of awkward questions. No sense giving them someone to ask them of, not yet.

She was still in that curious detached emotional state. Her mind was still thinking tactically ... she reviewed how the incident in the mall parking lot would affect her plans for the night. For a brief moment she considered aborting the rest of the day's planning, but rejected the idea almost as soon as she thought it.

"_A hunter adapts to changes, it doesn't run from them."_ She remembered the lesson around that aphorism well. Then she was hit with a realization that jerked her out of her detached state.

"_My god, what am I saying?"_ Her vision blurred, and she pulled over to one side of the road and stopped before she lost control of the car, and not too soon. She started to shake, uncontrollably, as the last 24 hours finally hit her, hard.

"_What have I become?"_

She knew the answer to that question, and hated herself for it. It was inevitable that it would happen, she just hadn't expected it to be like _this_. The ease with which she had switched from normal, happy-go-lucky human being, out shopping with her friend, into a cold hearted merciless hunter, that had killed a human being without a shred of remorse. Before then, her hunting had always been planned, she'd had the time to make the transition gradually. It seemed like it took her an effort of will to make the shift in her mind.

But this time it had been easy, so easy. She hadn't thought about it, hadn't needed to prepare for it – in an instant, she had become a hunter.

No, that wasn't it. In an instant, she had allowed the hunter to come _out_. She had no choice but to accept that the change had already occurred in her mind, that she saw things as a hunter first, with a thin veneer of civilization, of _humanity_ overlaid. She had just discovered how easy it was for that veneer to be stripped away to reveal the beast waiting underneath to be unleashed. Worse, she had enjoyed it. The feelings as she took bearded prey down, her pride, the need to scream her victory.

She knew this was going to happen. She had been warned it would happen, and of the consequences. Yet she had accepted the risk, because she needed the other advantages it would bring. She had thought that she was strong enough to resist her descent into the depths, but she now understood that there had been no chance of her succeeding. She had only herself to blame for the end result. The question as to whether or not she could live with it didn't need to be answered, not yet. She still had too much to do, and no way of knowing how long she had left to accomplish it.

She calmed her breathing, and willed her limbs to stop trembling. Eventually, they obeyed, but her thoughts took longer to quiet into acceptance. In the meantime, she sat there behind the wheel, an almost inaudible sob escaping every few minutes as she mourned her lost belief in her own humanity. She knew that she had crossed the point of no return, that the clock that had been hanging over her head for all these years was now, finally, ticking, and she was determined to make the most of it while she still could.

She started the car and eased back into traffic. She deliberately dampened her emotions, it wasn't time yet to face them head on.

She would still hunt tonight, _kainde amedha_, hunters, or anything else be damned.

* * *

"Why are we still here, Kylie?" 

The cameraman was looking decidedly bored. They'd been sitting around in the news van waiting to see if there would be another attack on the local crime rings, when the call had been overheard on the scanner about a murder here at the mall. When the dispatcher reported the body had been mutilated, they'd raced over here as fast as they could, only to discover the mutilations seemed to have been that the guy simply got himself carved up with a knife. He'd managed to sneak a look at the body before some officious cop had moved him back the other side of the tape, but the tell-tale severing of the spinal cord wasn't there.

The blond reporter was crouched down, tapping the end of her pen against her front teeth slowly as she looked around the area. He was right, it didn't follow the hallmarks of the attacks she'd been covering. The poor sod being spooned into a bag by the coroner's office grunts seemed like just another punk who had gotten on the wrong side of someone with a blade, but something nagged at her, and she was unwilling to casually give up on this as a lost cause just yet.

"He had a gun but he didn't get to use it." she murmured, half to herself. The cameraman snorted.

"So he got hit from behind, or there was more than one and they got the drop on him. Either way, this ain't our boys, Kylie." She sighed, taking one last look around the area, before standing and headed back towards the van, cameraman in tow.

"I don't know. Something doesn't ring right." she remarked as they climbed in and the cameraman started the engine. As he put the van into gear and started maneuvering around the emergency vehicles and gawkers that surrounded the scene, he continued the conversation.

"Well look, maybe it's a copycat or something."

"If they were a copycat they'd have cut the necks, we've been reporting on that every time." she replied, exasperated. He shook his head, waiting for the lights to change before swinging out into traffic and heading back downtown. Once he was sure they weren't going to get sideswiped by some lunatic driver on the long straightaway, he grinned.

"That guy got cut through his shoulders, beside his head. Maybe it was a dumb copycat who doesn't know where their spine is?" That got a laugh.

"THAT I can believe, around here. But no, something tells me this was our mysterious vigilante." He looked across at her.

"You think it's is a vigilante group doing the killings?"

"Sure, why not? The only ones dying are hoods. Even the one back there was, I recognized the name the cops gave us." she answered, flipping through her notepad.

"So if it's a vigilante group, why aren't they taking the credit for it, giving warnings to the rest of the mobsters or something?"

"How the hell should I know? Maybe they did, they just did it direct or something." She was getting annoyed with his interrogation, and it was showing in her voice. They were silent for a few more minutes as the traffic got heavy, he needed to concentrate a little more on his driving, but once they were clear again he cleared his throat.

"So what do we do now?" he asked her diplomatically. She sighed, looking out of the passenger side window at the buildings going past them.

"We wait until the next round of murders."

"You sound sure there'll be more."

"Oh, yeah. There'll be more."

* * *

It could sense their presence easily. Inside its mind, it took in all the information its heightened senses provided, and narrowed down the location. It shifted closer to them, matte black body invisible in the shadows as it made its way silently underneath the support beams high in the roof, the only sound to mark its passing the soft rasp of hard skin on the rusted steel. Slowly, carefully, it reached a point almost directly above them, and regarded them. 

They had decided to duck into the disused warehouse, figuring its remoteness would be perfect. Laughter and giggles echoed off the walls as they made their way into a room sectioned off from the main floor, a sign hanging by one corner above the door read "Receiving", but was soon replaced with the grunts and moans of humans in rut. The lack of roof to the office was no help, at various times both of them had looked up directly towards the darkness but seen nothing.

A low hiss escaped its throat, hidden tones and meanings inaudible to the senses of most living creatures underlaid and overlaid, but the frequency was capable of traveling long distances, passed on through vibrations in the surrounding structures and the air itself. It heard/felt/sensed the response of its peers through the sensory organs crammed into the elongated length of its gloss-black head, and settled itself to await their arrival.

If there had been any observers nearby, they would have been impressed. Because of the long hair hanging down, hiding his face, it was impossible to see the expression on the man's face, but the reaction of the small blond girl underneath every few minutes was both vociferous and energetic, enough that if the warehouse hadn't been set back from the main road it would have been possible someone would have come to investigate the screams of ecstasy she was producing. Those same observers would have considered it all a wonderful send off.

The only observers that were present had little interest in the mating rituals of other species however, and even less interest in how much either of the humans were enjoying theirs. The silent watcher was joined by two others, and on an unheard signal, the three of them dropped to the warehouse floor below, landing inside the office and surrounding the two humans.

The girl gasped, and the man realized they were not alone. Moving fast, he rolled onto his feet, a rusted iron pipe from the floor in his hand, but paused in shock as he came face to face with one of the black aliens. Paralyzed without understanding, he stood there as the snout of the alien came close to his face, rubbery lips peeling back slowly to reveal silvered teeth and drooling a viscous slime onto the floor. The look on his face changed to one of surprise as the alien's mouth opened, and a smaller mouth shot out, crushing through his skull just above his browline, penetrating through into the brain within with ease. As the smaller mouth retracted back into the alien's mouth, dragging slime coated grey matter and blood with it, he fell to the ground, dead.

The girl's screams rang through the warehouse again, but ended sharply.

* * *

The softly pulsing heat-glow of the walls was calm and comforting, a welcome respite from the cold air outside the ship. The chamber was sparse, by human standards, but for the hunters it was well appointed. Walls that would appear dull red and bare to human eyes were awash with paintings and designs to heat sensitive eyes, a beauty as alien as the hunters themselves. In one corner, a cube emitted varying waves of warmth into the air, creating a relaxing meditative haze, to their vision. 

One entire wall though would have caught even a human's attention. The protective shield, decorated itself with harshly angular heat symbols, was currently raised, revealing an anthropologist's wildest dream. Mounted on brackets to the wall, a collection of skulls and other artifacts stood mute testimony to the skills of the chamber's occupant, but imagination would fail trying to visualize the original appearance of the most of the creatures represented in death. Each trophy had been taken in that particular rite of the hunt that was the challenge for a hunter. Each was a reminder of the battles a hunter had fought, and the honors it had both given and received.

It was sitting on a large grey slab, slowly drawing a stone across the edge of a long wavy blade. The noise was somehow soothing, rhythmic, and its eyes were half closed, lost in its own thoughts, when there came a noise from the doorway. It looked up to the hunter framed there, waiting respectfully for permission to approach, and after a moment gave a sigh, placed the stone and blade to one side, and gestured to the waiting warrior to enter.

"You have news?" the Elder asked the hunter.

It had been debating whether to give the hunter another chance, after its blatant breach of etiquette the night before during the Hunting Council, but the Elder was unwilling to reduce the number of effective fighters available. This hunt had already gone glaringly wrong, the _kainde amedha_ making it inside the city and three hunters falling to alien hands, it hadn't survived so many hunts and been given command of this ship and the hunters aboard for their trial by making rash decisions.

"I was unable to find the hard meat nest, Elder," the hunter answered, "however while returning to the ship I encountered the human female again."

The Elder looked at the hunter questioningly. It knew what the Elder was asking, and hastily offered reassurances.

"I did not hunt her, and she was unaware of my presence, Elder. She was hunting a human." The Elder looked surprised.

"Did her hunt end well?" The hunter nodded.

"She hunted two, Elder, but allowed one to escape. The remaining prey did not seem much of a challenge. She did not take the head as a trophy, only removing teeth."

"As she did with the _kainde amedha_ we saw her hunt. A curious custom." The Elder regarded the hunter for a moment, then continued. "Return to the hunt for the _kainde amedha_ nest."

The hunter inclined its head in acknowledgment before leaving the Elder to its thoughts. It waited for a few minutes, then summoned one of the older, more tested hunters into its chamber. While it waited, it took up the stone resumed sharpening the blade. In only a short time, the summoned hunter arrived, and once granted permission to enter it waited patiently in front of the Elder for instructions.

"You are to hunt for the nest of the human female. Find it and report back to me."

* * *

She was glad there hadn't been anyone walking the halls or using the elevator this early in the evening, it made it easier to reach her apartment. She quickly stripped out of her blood-stained clothes, removing the arsenal of blades concealed within and placing them in the sink as usual, and ran the bath full of hot water. After dumping her clothes in the trash, she scrubbed at her hands to clear off some of the blood encrusted there, avoiding looking in the mirror set into the bathroom cabinet door. 

Once the tub had filled, she lowered herself into the steaming water, and submerged her head, braided hair floating like a dark halo around her face as small bubbles of air escaped from her nose to pop on the surface. As she came back up, she rubbed at the braids, watching the water stain from the blood again. She had become proficient at removing blood from herself, and made quick work of cleaning off bearded prey's fluids. In short order she was toweling herself dry.

Only then did she risk a quick peek in the mirror, swiping her hand across the surface to clear the condensation mist away. As she washed and dried each of the weapons she had removed, she kept looking into her eyes in her reflection, trying to detect something there.

"_I still look human, I guess."_ she thought to herself wryly. Her self loathing had faded to a background ache as she had come home. She was trying hard not to let it affect her, but now that she had come to finally understand the change to her thinking, all the little clues that she had been ignoring were glaringly obvious to her. She could feel the difference in how she viewed things, understood that she was an outsider to the world now, a hunter. The word sprang unbidden to her mind, as she had been taught it – _Yautja_. She tried to put the thoughts out of her mind, they wouldn't be of any use to her, as she went into the bedroom to find a fresh set of clothes.

As she opened the secret closet to select her weapons, her eyes fell on the mask inside, a shiver running through her. She knelt down and picked it up gently, feeling the rough texture with her fingertips. It was designed to cover her face, eyeshields giving the mask a faintly oriental look, the raised area that would sit over her mouth ridged vertically in a way that reminded her of fangs. She turned it around to look inside, to see some type of electronics surrounding the inside of the eyeshields, and a built in respirator unit, like a cut down version of the oxygen masks you'd find in a hospital. The outer edge of the mask was lined with some sort of foam beading, and she knew that if the two small ports on the side of the mask were connected with the rest of a hunter's amour, that foam would form a seal, making the mask very hard to remove until the pressure was released.

The rest of a hunter's armor ... Hesitantly, she opened the bottom drawer in the closet, revealing more objects of that gun-grey material. Each one of them had been a symbol of each step in her journey, a "reward" of sorts. Each one of them formed part of the armor of a hunter. She had yet to wear any of it, clinging on to the last shreds of her humanity itself through denial. The moment she wore the full armor of a hunter, there would be no escaping her destiny. That would be the final symbol of her loss.

Instead, she selected a new set of weapons, and once more secreted them about herself in the specially adjusted clothing she wore. She debated with herself over some of them, the situation had changed with the arrival of the hunters and _kainde amedha_. Her feelings around wearing the armor didn't extend to using the weapons, so she added a hunter's spear and an odd pistol looking device to the tools for her hunt, before closing the drawer, then the closet itself.

She looked around, as she always did before leaving to hunt, as if to try to remember it all, or to say farewell. She was never quite sure which one was the reason, but she did it every time anyway. Once she had completed her pre-hunting 'ritual', she quietly left the apartment, her mind now fully on the upcoming hunt. There was a building she'd heard about that needed to be investigated.

* * *

The blond girl woke up surrounded by something cold and hard, and quickly found she could hardly move. Frantically, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she looked around trying to see what was holding her in place, but all she could see was some sort of hard resin or fiberglass material. As her vision became sharper, she could see more of the room she was trapped inside, but all she could see was walls coated with more of the stuff that held her tight. 

She struggled against her bonds, and was heartened when part of it gave way with a sharp _crack!_ Pulling against it, pushing against the wall behind her, wrenching at it, wriggling every way she could think of, she finally was able to loosen the resinous bondage holding one of her arms to the wall, and with a cry of success she started to pull away at the slab across her chest and stomach.

She was stunned when she felt a sharp pain in her chest, but put it out of her mind as pulling a muscle from her exertions, and continued to free herself. When the pain re-occurred, sharper this time, she gasped, and pressed her hand up against her sternum, taking in deep breaths.

"Please God, no, don't give me a damned heart attack on top of all of this ..." She tried to scream, but she had no air to do so, and another _crack!_ sounded, dull and hollow in her ears. She tried to draw breath, but as she opened her mouth, her chest opened up like the petals of a gory flower, spraying blood over the floor in front of her. She looked down, as her life ebbed away, but all she saw was a pale dead-fish colored thing protruding from the ruins of her body.

"Eww, gross ..." was all she could think of before the light went out behind her eyes. She slumped, bending at her still-trapped waist, blond hair falling down in a cascade curtain to conceal her face. The alien screeched in announcement to the world of it's birth, before pulling its way free from the cooling body, scuttling off into the shadows.

* * *

She watched from across the street, noting the comings and goings, making a mental note of the faces she saw. Those lucky enough to not be inside when she made her move she would remember for later reference. Many times, she'd found places to hunt because she'd recognized someone she had seen at a prior location, and followed them to the places that had been set up to replace the ones she's hunted in. 

Something 'felt' wrong with the whole thing, it was quiet, much too quiet. She'd found out this place was a small distribution center, but even small there should have been more traffic in and out of the building. She tried to discount her disquiet, trying to put it down to the aftermath of her earlier self-realization, but it was bugging her. She decided to ignore it completely, and made her way across the street during a lull in the traffic, walking casually so as to not attract notice. She was in the front door before anyone realized it, and facing the two goons that were on guard there. One of them moved a gun to cover her, while the other stood and approached her, leering.

She allowed a dagger to drop from her sleeve, catching it in the palm of her hand and keeping it shielded by her body. She smiled sweetly up at the guard approaching her, and he came to a halt, definitely inside her personal space.

"So babe, what can we do for you? You lost?" She groaned inwardly at the lame line, but asked her question anyway, wanting to verify she had the right place.

"Actually, no. I was told that I should come here if I was interested in purchasing enough stuff to handle a party." The guard's face fell, as he realized that this was going to be business.

"Sorry lady, you came to the wrong place." She made as if to interrupt him, but he raised his hand and continued. "The main place ain't here, everything got moved today because of all the killings." She blinked inwardly.

"Where's it been moved to?" she asked, innocently. The guard's eyes narrowed and he shifted on his feet a little.

"Oopsies" she said, tossing the dagger underhand at the seated guard, who toppled over as the blade entered his forehead. The other one stared at her, finally understanding, as she placed a new blade against his throat. She smiled, showing teeth, and gently pushed down on his shoulder until he was kneeling.

"Now, about this new 'main place' ..."

* * *

"Elder!" One of the hunters came running into the Elder's chamber, but what it held in its hands made its haste understandable. Eight pale legs bracketed a flattened ribbed body, a long prehensile tail dangling down lifelessly at the back. At the sight of the creature, the Elder shot up from the stone slab it had been resting on, and in two long strides was beside the hunter, eyes wide. The Elder looked at the creature to confirm that it was what was feared, then harshly demanded answers from the hunter. 

"Where did you find this?"

"A deserted building near the site of the battle last night, Elder. There was a _pyode amedha_ body there also." the hunter replied, trying to remain calm and give the detailed report it knew the Elder would require, regardless of how what it held in its hands right then made it feel. A first stage hard meat lifeform, born of an egg, whose sole purpose in life was to implant the embryo of adult _kainde amedha_ in unwilling hosts, the perverse and fatal form of the alien's lifecycle.

"Had it been implanted?" The urgency of the question was obvious. The Elder was cursing itself inwardly for its complacency.

"No Elder, it looks like it was killed by _kainde amedha_." Before the Elder could show its happiness at this news, the hunter continued on hurriedly. "It was a male, though."

The Elder cocked its head at the hunter curiously. "There is some significance to that?", it asked.

"Yes Elder, he was unclothed. There was clothing present, but some of it was not his, it had a different scent present, I believe that of a female."

"Did you find the body of a female?" The hunter shook it's head negatively, as other hunters entered the chamber, drawn by the excitement.

The Elder growled, this was getting worse by the moment. "Then it's likely the female was implanted with a _kainde amedha_ young, then removed to the nest for safe keeping until its birth. Have any more of the first stage lifeforms been discovered?"

"No Elder. But Elder, I thought that we still had several more days before one of the hard meat would begin to become a Queen?" The hunter was confused, and a note of concern was creeping into its voice. It had never seen the Elder so agitated before.

"Under normal circumstances that would be the case, however it seems that like everything _else_ with this hunt, nothing is going according to expectations." the Elder snapped. "Worse yet, if there are eggs present it means that it has matured." The Elder paused and took a deep breath, trying to keep its temper in check. There was no point taking it out on this hunter, figuring out what had gone wrong would come later, _if_ any of them survived.

Thinking quickly, the Elder made a decision, and began passing orders to the hunters.

"Recall the hunters, they are to re-equip themselves with a full array of weapons, including plasma weaponry." One of the newly arrived hunters, the one the Elder had sent to find the nest of the strange human female, spoke up.

"Even the unblooded, Elder?"

"Yes. This isn't the time for half measures. This is beyond the trial now." The Elder noticed the eyes of the impatient hunter, one of the unblooded, light up at the chance to be let loose with advanced weaponry. It made a mental note to make sure _that_ one was never left alone, there would be no telling what damage it would cause given its lack of discipline. After a moment, the Elder looked to the hunter that had just spoken.

"Did you locate the human female's nest?" The hunter looked surprised at the question, but answered quickly.

"No Elder, but I did locate the female herself. She is hunting _pyode amedha_ in a building near the area of interest." The Elder nodded, surprised in spite of itself that the human would be hunting again so soon. It wondered what created such a sense of urgency, but then decided that it should just ask her.

"Indeed? Find her. When her hunt is completed, make contact with her, and inform her that I wish to speak with her."

The hunters collectively gasped in amazement, and the hunter it had addressed looked around, as if unsure that it had heard correctly.

"Elder?"

"She has shown that she understands honor to some degree, and this situation involves her species very directly. If she is as she appears, a hunter, then it would be dishonorable not to inform her of what is going on, or to deny her the chance to hunt the _kainde amedha_." The Elder explained patiently, knowing that they had the right to know why it was considering this huge breach of the rules. It knew that it needed to maintain their trust, and going so far beyond the standards of conduct for hunters would lead to challenges against its leadership. It needed them to remain focused, and it needed them to retain their trust in its ability.

But it dared not verbalize it's thoughts.

"_And if the hard meat have a Queen that is producing eggs, we are likely to need every hunter we can find, even if one is _pyode amedha_."_


	6. A posse ad esse non valet consequentia

**A posse ad esse non valet consequentia**

The guard must have had some life left in him, the body gave a small jerk as she drove the blade into the back of his neck to sever his spinal cord, her own take on the ritual. Withdrawing the narrow knife, she let the body drop on the floor out of sight, to rest next to its compatriot, the thrown dagger already removed from that one's forehead.

She moved over to the door to the street, and closed it, and a moment's searching came up with the steel bar that would drop across from one side of the frame to the other to bar it closed. Once she was sure it was secured, she withdrew the multi tool from its place inside her clothing, and flicked the pliers out of one end, bending to her grisly task of removing the incisor teeth of both guards. She dropped them into the cloth pouch for her trophies.

"_A new 'main place' huh? And by the sounds of it, a bunker."_ She grinned inwardly. "_It's about time these mopes came up with a real challenge."_ The thought of it as a 'challenge' didn't bother her as much as it once would have, she was allowing the hunter she had become to show itself almost unrestrained now. She could see that she had thought this way on hunts for a while now, she just had refused to accept it.

The guard had been quite eager to tell her all about how the main distribution was being handled by the new building, and to give her the location. He'd thought that it would save his life. He had been wrong. She would check it out and pay a visit soon, but there was still this building to clear out first. She checked her weapons once more, but a vague sense of unease still nagged at the back of her head.

She paused, trying to allow her new awareness of her self analyze the feelings, trying to identify the cause, but came up blank. One of 'those feelings' was bubbling up in the pit of her stomach again. After a few minutes she gave up trying to figure it out, she would just have to rely on her instincts, and take it as it came. She withdrew the retracted spear from a pocket within her clothes, took a deep breath, and walked through the doorway deeper into the building.

There wasn't much difference between the condition of the rooms here than there had been in the other places she'd hunted, things always seemed to follow a set pattern. Although she didn't know his name, she was looking at the product of Ito's practical mind, streamlining the shared operations of the group. In effect, he'd created a MacDonald's of organized crime, thanks in part to their total domination of local law enforcement. Once they controlled the police, they were able to consolidate their operations into central locations, representatives of all three groups being able to practice their trade with overall security provided by Wen's people.

That just made it easier for her.

The same risks elsewhere to such an arrangement - the vulnerability of having everything in one place - may have been removed when it came to the issue of the cops, but they hadn't factored in someone like her, and these places were her prime hunting grounds.

-

* * *

The scanner was quiet, the only calls coming over it were the usual mundane day-to-day business of cops. He figured that the cops were using a different frequency to talk about the attacks, something the tactical teams used probably, but the equipment they had wouldn't be any use trying to listen in on those, they were almost invariably encrypted channels. He looked across at the sleeping form in the passenger seat as he drove around aimlessly, hoping to spot something unusual the old fashioned way. 

He still didn't understand why she felt the murder at the mall was connected to the murders they'd been covering, but that might be why she was the reporter and he's just the cameraman. He shrugged, and concentrated on driving. This wasn't exactly the best neighborhood to be hanging around in with a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of electronics in the back.

* * *

- 

The first door she came to was usually the 'fence', the buyer of stolen properties, in these places. She opened the door easily to a room stacked high with boxes and goods. The fence himself looked to be about forty years old, with those nervous, shifty eyes that all in his chosen 'profession' acquired early on in their careers. He looked at her, and his eyes widened, before he darted for a box sitting on top of a white plastic chair. She waited, standing easily in the doorway, until he reached the box and pulled out a large framed silver revolver. He brought it up to point, and she moved, sidestepping then pivoting as she ducked down low, one hand reaching inside her jacket.

The room was filled with the deafening crash of the gun firing. As his panicked shot went over her head and to one side, she completed the turn, her arm now outstretched as it flung an object towards him. Looking like a couple of spikes welded together to form an 'X' shaped cross, it cleaved through the air before embedding itself in his chest, two of the points entering flesh and coming to a halt lodged in his sternum. With a _whoof_ of exhaled air, the fence went down onto his butt, the gun held limply in his hand as he stared stupidly at the steel protruding out in front of him. He tried feebly to raise the gun once more as she approached, but she reached over and gently took it out of his hand.

"Why do little people always seem to have big guns?", she asked rhetorically, looking at the gun with disdain before opening the cylinder and dumping the remaining rounds and single expended cartridge on the ground between the fence's knees. He looked up at her with fearful eyes, and for a moment her resolve faltered, as it always did when hunting those who weren't the 'muscle' end of the business. In his own mind, she knew, he hadn't hurt anyone, hadn't wronged anyone. She knew different, and thought of those people whose property had been stolen, their being attacked, perhaps even killed for the trinkets filling the room. She reached for his hair with one hand, dragging his head backwards, before the other drove a blade up under his chin and into his brain. His body lurched once, spasmodically, then was still.

She added his incisor teeth to her pouch, and severed his spinal cord as she had done to countless others in her hunts, then wrenched the throwing cross from his chest. She cleaned the blades on his clothes, then moved on. By the time she reached the door, she thought no more about him. The other prey would be on the alert now from the sound of the gunshot.

"_Good. More of a challenge."_

_- _

* * *

The hunter was waiting patiently outside for the human to finish her hunt. It wasn't sure why the Elder wanted to speak with it, but it admitted to itself that the Elder's logic about the _pyode amedha_ needing to know of the hard meat threat made sense. It heard the humans inside firing their weapons, but it was sure that this female would comport her hunt well.

* * *

- 

She ducked back behind the wall with a grin as a hail of automatic gunfire was launched at her. She had reached the room that was usually used as the drug room. The only access the 'users' had to the stuff inside was a small window set in one wall on the outside of the building that led inside here, an arrangement that was generally considered to be secure. Anyone trying to get at the drugs would need to come through the building itself to actually get into this room, and they had relied on the guards at the front door, and one more at the door to this room, to deal with anyone that tried that route.

It was just their bad luck that all of the guards were dead, the one outside this door having been hit by untold rounds fired by the three people inside the drug room when she'd used him as a shield while she shoved the door open.

-

* * *

He was about ready to shake her awake and suggest they call it a night, when he had to slam the brakes on to avoid hitting two teenagers that were sprinting across the road, terror evident on their faces. The sudden stop woke her up, but while she blearily rubbed the sleep from her eyes with a half annoyed "What ...?", he made shushing noises. The teens had been running away from the side of a building, and as he looked across, he spotted the half window mounted there. His experience told him what the building was used for, but he didn't have to be a hotshot cameraman to recognize the sounds coming from within the building. 

He reached behind the reporter's seat for his camera, all the time watching the building across the street, checking to see if any of the wild bursts of gunfire he could hear was likely to head their way through the window. Finally coming alert, the reporter's eyes widened as she too heard the gunfire.

"You think ...?" she asked, trembling.

"Dunno, but it's a good bet. Let me guess, you ain't going to stay ... ?" He didn't bother finishing the question, she was already half way out the passenger side door and trying to look over the hood of the van towards the building. He sighed, shaking his head, and made his way over the seats until he left the van on her side. After a minute of making sure the shooters weren't aiming through the window, they ran across the road, appearing comical as they ducked low, before pressing up against the wall near the window. The reporter made as if to get around the cameraman to peek through the window, but he hauled her back with a grin. He held the camera up in one hand, waggling it softly.

"Kylie? Which do you think would be less annoying if it got shot – this, or you?" She snorted, but drew back as he removed the small LCD monitor from the back of the camera and handed it to her.

"If you ask the network, they'd prefer me to the camera get it." He laughed quietly as he powered up the camera, and looked down at the screen she was holding as he lifted the camera up so the lens would point into the room. Both of them gasped at the same moment as the image came into focus.

* * *

- 

The three men were definitely good at wasting ammo, she could see. She wasn't sure if they were trying their own version of suppressive fire, or trying to damage the wall enough to shoot through it but missing drastically, but several hundred rounds had come through the doorway to crater the corridor wall as she crouched down easily.

Suddenly and without warning though, the bullets stopped coming through the doorway, although the gunfire continued. After a minute, silence fell, and she risked slowly looking around the doorframe to see why.

Two of the men were slumped up against one wall, blood trickling from their faces, but the ammunition belts slung across their chests rose and fell, they were still breathing. The third however was certainly not, one look at the ruined remains of his head (she assumed he'd been male, it was hard to tell) was enough to certify the body was just that, a body.

The cause was unknown though. Looking further around the door frame, she could see no signs of what had attacked the three men, but with a start she realized the only ones that could have done this.

"Yautja! Dammit! This is my hunt!" she called out, standing and entering the drug room. She glared around, daring the concealed hunter to reveal itself, common sense flying out the window in the red haze of her anger. To have interfered in her hunt was a breach of the protocols that had been drummed into her so painfully so long ago, and she was incensed. She might be just a human, but dammit, these were her hunting grounds!

Silence was her only reply, and she looked around more warily, wondering if this was ... then she heard it, from above. A low, sussurating hiss that would not have come from a hunter. She knew only one other lifeform that made that noise.

Quickly she darted behind the remains of the door, and crouched down. She knew there was little chance of her evading detection from the one, two _kainde amedha_ that appeared from the ceiling, a hole there coming to her notice finally. She mentally kicked herself for not having seen it in her angry entrance to the room. She hoped that the unconscious criminals on the floor would be sufficient distraction for her until she chose the right moment.

-

* * *

"Tell me you're getting this!" she breathed in his ear, breathlessly watching the scene unfolding on the monitor she held in quivering hands. 

"Oh, I'm gettin' it, girl. I ain't believin' it, but I'm getting' it!"

* * *

- 

She didn't think of trying to escape, her only thoughts were on the aliens in front of her, while once more she tried to understand why they were here in the first place. From everything she had learned, _kainde amedha_ were the ultimate trial of a new hunter to be able to ascend into manhood ... thinghood ... lobsterhood ... alienhood ... whatever. But she had understood the trial to be done in a controlled environment, to limit the damage should the hunters fail. She knew that each hunter had a powerful bomb strapped to their arm, that they were supposed to use rather than let themselves be killed or captured - she'd rushed into the fight the night before more to put the spear through the bomb on the last hunter's arm than to fight the aliens, to stop it exploding and causing untold damage.

No, that wasn't the reason. Not really. She could tell that she didn't really believe it herself. She wanted to face the aliens. She wasn't the same as she had been that first disastrous time she'd tried to hunt them, when she would have died with a hard meat tail impaled through her stomach if she had been alone. She was older, wiser, stronger, and faster. She had entered the battle and spiked the bomb because she wanted to hunt them.

And here were two more.

This wasn't the best place for a fight with hard meat. The hunters had died because they allowed themselves to be caught in close confines. Her only chance of fighting _kainde amedha_ was to use her speed and agility, there was no way she could survive a stand-up fight with them, and she knew it – that was how she'd ended up spiked on a _kainde amedha_ tail. The question was, would the room be big enough to allow her to use those strengths? She was evaluating the room and her chances, planning the best way to engage the aliens, when she noticed something that brought her up short.

They were both carrying something.

"Oh shit! _Huggers?_" She knew those things too well. Her mind went into panicked overdrive, primal fear bubbling up through her subconscious to trigger her into reflexive action, making her draw the odd looking pistol from her clothes. The two _kainde amedha_ holding the long tailed facehuggers spun around at the sound of her voice, and she pulled the trigger rapidly, aiming not at the aliens but their deadly cargoes. With each pull, a silvered arrow tip shot out of the barrel of the pistol, but in her haste the first few missed, striking one of the hard meat in the arm instead. With a screech, it dropped the creature it had been carrying, and she quickly changed her aim point to hit the facehugger before it could right itself, knowing the speed they were capable of launching themselves at their victims with. She was surprised when it moved slowly, almost lethargically, on the ground, but her next two arrow points slammed into its body, throwing it backwards in a spray of acidic gore.

She didn't have time to question why it had been slow, she knew she had been standing still for too long already. She tracked on the second hard meat and its burden, releasing the last four arrow tips in the pistol at them, and was rewarded by seeing the body of the other facehugger spray apart into a mist at the impact.

She dropped the pistol and was bringing the spear up to extend it when the _kainde amedha_ she had hit crashed into her, knocking her backwards to the ground. Her head hit the concrete floor hard, and for a moment she could see nothing but flashes behind her eyes, laying there stunned. When her senses returned, she was face to face with the _kainde amedha_! It stood above her, screeching a hiss, and she cried out in pain as it whipped the serrated ridges of its tail down and across her body, shredding her clothes and skin.. She brought the spear around just as the alien bent over her, mouth opening so it could finish her off with its internal mouth, and pressed against the grip to extend it. The tip shot through the alien's mouth before coming out at the back of its head, but the alien's weight kept it sliding down the shaft. With black-green acidic blood beginning to flow down towards her hand holding the spear, she had to choose quickly, and she let go, pushing it away to one side as she rolled over and away in the opposite direction.

Before she could get back on her feet, blazing pain shot through the calf of one leg, the remaining _kainde amedha_ had gripped it in the meatiest part with it's talons, sharp claws puncturing through the skin and muscle to grate against the bone itself. She let out an ear piercing scream of agony as the alien pulled her closer, in desperation pulling one of the long blades out from it's hiding place along her thigh and hacking into the alien's wrist. The _kainde amedha_ reared back, letting go of her leg, and she threw the remains of the rapidly melting blade after it as she scrabbled backwards, trying to avoid spatters of the alien blood spraying around wildly as it shook with its own pain and anger.

-

* * *

The hunter stiffened suddenly, the sensors in its helmet bringing it a sound it hadn't expected. The cries of _kainde amedha_ in battle. _Inside the building!_

* * *

- 

It dropped down on all fours, favoring the wrist she had cut into, and started stalking towards her, its tail raised high above it like some mutated scorpion. She watched the tip of the tail through a red haze of burning pain, her head throbbing and the back of her neck damp, her leg screaming at her where the _kainde amedha_ claws had punctured it, and her body was stinging as sweat-salt began to mix with the blood welling up from her wounds there. Despite the pain, she reached her other hand down the other long blade she carried, and as it cleared its concealment she reversed it against her forearm.

The _kainde amedha_ had not evolved on this world. Their senses were acute, yes, nearly impossible to hide from, but those sense were optimized for a different world, a different environment. When it came to visual senses, they were limited, and it couldn't 'see' the blade when she had it in that position, one of the tricks she had learned. The alien would only see her arm moving, not the blade underneath it. It worked pretty well against _pyode amedha_ as well, but in their case she had decided it was simply a case of most humans weren't particularly observant.

The only problem? She only had one long blade left, and neither it nor any of her other remaining weapons were acid resistant. She'd only get one chance to use it, and there weren't that many ways to kill _kainde amedha_ in one go. Worst, all of those ways would need her to be perilously close to its teeth, claws, and tail, not to mention the risks of being close to hard meat after cutting it, the blood itself. She hadn't expected to lose the spear, counting on it and her speed if she'd ended up facing _kainde amedha_ tonight. Her words to the hunter the night before rang hollow in her mind, "_Overconfidence is dangerous."_ No shit, Sherlock!

She was getting close to the wall behind her, still trying to crawl backwards but only one leg was responding. That and trying to keep her blade concealed made it slow going, but the hard meat didn't seem in any rush, it knew she had nowhere to go. She slipped, almost falling over onto her side and biting off a scream as the wounds in her body tore open a little more. She looked down and found a thick plastic bag of white powder under her good hand, that had thrown her off balance. Hoping to distract the alien, she picked the bag up and threw it, but the _kainde amedha_ sensed the onrushing object and swatted at it with one claw, ripping open the bag and coating itself with the fine dust inside.

"Great, I hope you get high, you son of a bitch." she muttered, backing up more, but then stopped and stared at the alien. It too had come to a standstill, and slowly it raised itself up on it's hind legs, body swaying gently and its head shaking from side to side.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" She thought, stunned. "Those things _can_ get high?" She looked around quickly. She knew she was losing a lot of blood, and wouldn't have much longer to act. The thought of trying to escape didn't even cross her mind, her entire being was focused on figuring out a way to take the alien down. She was trying to lever herself up when the decision was taken from her.

A blur of displaced air, and the head of the _kainde amedha_ suddenly jumped up, separated from its body at the neck.

She blinked, trying to understand what had happened, but the blood loss was finally gaining on her. She slumped back down to the ground, her vision blurring into darkness, as she saw a shimmer in front of her coalesce, slowly revealing the form of a hunter, and after a moment she smiled.

"It's about time you showed up."

-

* * *

It regarded her unconscious body for a moment, head cocked to one side in thought. After a moment's deliberation, it reached behind its back and unclipped a curved metallic container, a near twin of the medical kit she had used to treat her wounds the night before. Placing it on the ground beside her, it depressed a panel on the kit, opening it up to display the brutally effective medical equipment of Yautja. It flexed its right wrist, and the twin blades mounted to its forearm came out with a click 

Working quickly, yet gently, it parted the remnants of the clothes covering her chest with the tip of the blades, and looked at the blood seeping from the wound on her chest, soft clicking coming from behind its mask. It reached into the medical kit, removing a vial of the same blue liquid she had used, un-stoppering it, and pouring a large amount of the fluid into her wounds. It repeated the process on the wound on her leg, and even in her current state, she moaned, her back arching as testament to the pain of the treatment.

The hunter knew that it had to work quickly to stem the bleeding, pouring more of the fluid in until the vial was almost empty, as it withdrew a small flattened cube from the top of the kit, and placed it on her sternum. Once satisfied all the bleeding had stopped, it pressed down on the cube, which started sending electrical pulses through her body, interrupting and taking over her heartbeat, slowing it and her respiration down. The device would hold her stable for a while, and the hunter it could hear charging through the building to reach this place could handle things from here.

With a final look at the unconscious girl, the hunter stood, closing the medical kit and leaving it on the floor, and once more that breathy female voice was heard - "_Not yet"_. It turned and ran towards the window in the wall to outside, cloaking once more as it did so, before smashing through with ease, sending fragments of brick, plaster, metal flying, and bowling the reporter and cameraman over. Without pausing, it extended and skewered its spear into the camera as it was falling from the cameraman's shoulder, an electric blue arc brightening the evening sky in a surge of energy that ruined the recording, and vanished into the evening air.


	7. Auribus teneo lupum

**Auribus teneo lupum**

It could taste the acidic mist of spilled _kainde amedha_ blood in the back of its throat before it reached the doorway, and braced itself ready to engage in the mortal combat that was inevitable should the two species meet. A quiet electronic whine sounded as the weapon mounted on the left shoulder of the hunter's armor swung up to a ready position, gaping muzzle ready to spit electromagnetic death.

The hunter rounded the doorway, senses and sensors straining to catalog possible prey, potential threats. Immediately it noticed the fallen _kainde amedha_, and after a second it saw the remains of the first stage lifeforms. It took in the scene – a gaping hole in the wall, the fallen hard meat and their progenitors, two unconscious humans, a dead human and ...

It remained cloaked as it moved towards the motionless form of the female hunter. She seemed badly wounded, but the wounds were coated in the blue healing compound of the hunter's race. A medical kit lay beside her prone body, but it seemed to be closed, raising the question of who had used the compound. It looked around for a moment, allowing the scents in the air to fill its mask, and nodded to itself as it detected an unknown musk. It was obvious that it was Yautja spoor, but if it had been that of one of its fellows, the hunter would have recognized it.

It checked her life signs through the sensors built into its amour, at the same time it carefully scanned her chest cavity to ensure she hadn't been infected with a _kainde amedha_ embryo. It was relieved to discover the scan was negative, but it paused as it noticed a strange device on the human's chest. It was unsure of it's purpose, the technology was definitely neither human nor Yautja, but it seemed to be regulating her body functions somehow. Her metabolism was lower than even sleeping _pyode amedha_ reached, so it assumed that logically this was some form of medical device that was preserving her life.

With that thought it bent down to examine her wounds more closely, trying to determine their severity, when it was distracted by a noise coming from the wall, or more properly the hole that someone, presumably the unknown hunter, had made in it. It caught a glimpse of two nervous looking humans, a male and a female, and it hesitated, unsure what to do. The human hunter was in need of attention, more than its medical supplies could supply, but the two humans were unarmed as far as it could detect – just killing them wasn't an acceptable option.

It discounted the two unconscious humans; Their proximity to weapons, and the chemical stench of the discharge of those weapons was all over them - they had obviously been prey of the human female, although since they still lived, and she had not taken her peculiar trophies from them, it assumed that her hunt had been interrupted by the arrival of the _kainde amedha_.

Then there was the question of the _kainde amedha_ remains, and cleaning up signs of the hunt so as to not upset later prey, the latter being drilled into all Yautja from an early stage in their training. It looked around, still cloaked from view, as the two humans entered through the hole, peering at the hard meat corpses with shock evident on their faces. It made its decision, and toggled the weapon over its shoulder to its heat mode.

Picking up the medical kit beside the human, it uncloaked, and let out a roar of challenge to the two humans. After a moment's stunned silence, both humans looking at the hunter, their faces terrified, they bolted, as it had wanted them to do. Once they had left through the hole, it looked around one last time, scanning the structure as best it could until it found the best place. From the side of its mark, three pinpoints of red light shone forth, a trio of dots appearing on the wall, and it unleashed the barely constrained fury of the weapon.

In rapid sequence, four scarlet balls of lightning shot from the muzzle, casting an eerie red glow over the room before they slammed into the wall. As they hit, the wall burst into flames, the area directly impacted vaporising into atomic dust. The hunter watched with satisfaction as the inside of the wall rapidly began to glow to its heat sensitive vision, the superheated and compressed plasma the shoulder cannon had spat out causing a chain reaction of fire. It knew the fire would burn faster and hotter than any naturally caused blaze, and would reduce a good portion of the building to ashes before any hope could be had of controlling it.

Satisfied at its efforts to conceal what had happened here, and heedless of the two humans still alive, the hunter reached down and gently hoisted the female hunter up, and rested her over its right shoulder. It reactivated its cloaking mechanism, knowing that it would not be totally effective at concealing her but would make her harder to see, counting on the approaching darkness of night to complete the concealment, then stepped through the hole in the wall. The two humans it had scared from the room were cowering behind a transport of some kind on the other side of the roadway such vehicles traveled on, but it ignored them, instead launching into an easy ground-eating jog, reaching speeds an Olympic sprinter would have never been able to maintain.

-

* * *

"What. The fuck. Was _that_?"

"I don't know, and I don't _want_ to know. Kylie, we shouldn't stay here." The cameraman was rattled, he hadn't signed up for this! They both began to stand but ducked down again as a wall of fire flashed through the large hole in the side of the building. Tentatively, they peeked over the hood of the van, but they could see nothing except flames. There was no way anything was still alive in there.

" ... the gunfight, then those black things ... that woman in black ... the thing that appeared out of nowhere, the other one ..." She was babbling incoherently, all trace of the logical, calm, rational reporter's mind submerged behind the shock her psyche had just suffered. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, more forcefully than he had intended, until she looked at him, her eyes blank and crazed.

"We didn't see shit, girl. The camera's gone." Indeed it was, even if the hunter hadn't speared it and wiped the recording on its way past, the remains were a mess of bubbling black plastic now, they'd left it by the wall when they went inside, and the fire was destroying what was left of it. "We can call it quits. We just walk away, it never happened." She wrenched herself away from him and stood, trembling.

"No! We both saw the same thing. There's _aliens_ out there killing people! We have to _tell_ someone, the world needs to know!" He shook his head slowly, the look in her face frightening him. He ignored the rapid fire sounds of gunfire from inside the building, the ammunition stored there was beginning to cook off, the intense heat causing the bullets to explode.

"Kylie, we have no proof. No-one will believe us." She looked at him incredulously for a long minute.

"Then we get the proof! We find those things and ... and ... we capture one! Then we have the proof!" He laughed, ignoring the warning flash of her eyes.

"Girl, the damned thing ran through a _wall_! How the hell do you think we can capture one?" As if on cue, there was a crash from inside the building as part of the ceiling to the drug room collapsed in on itself, sending a whoosh of superheated air and dust through the opening.

"The woman." He stared at her, and she continued. "That ... _thing_ did something to her, it was trying to stop the bleeding, remember?" He nodded, trying to figure out where she was going with this.

"I'm betting that she's connected with those things somehow. If we find _her_, we'll find them. If it was trying to patch her up, it probably has feelings for her, and if we have her I'll bet it will come running to save her and will do what we tell it to do and if it doesn't we'll kill the bitch and it won't want ..." He broke her off in mid rant, her voice had been getting more shrill as it had gone on.

"And it might just decide to kill us instead. Let's forget it. Come on, I'll take you home." He stood and put his arms around her shoulders gently, guiding her back into the van. She was limp, as if her rambling had wound her down like a broken clockwork doll. He assumed the fire in her eyes was a reflection of the blaze across the street.

* * *

-

All of the hunters were clustered around the entryway to the medical chamber, debating amongst themselves in low growls and clicks about the wisdom of the Elder in allowing the human female to be brought on board the ship, as well as wondering about her and her origins. Inside the chamber, the Elder, the hunter that had brought the human to the ship, and one of the older hunters stood in a group looking down at the unconscious human female.

The older hunter, healer for the hunting party, and the ship, also had the most extensive knowledge of the anatomy of human prey, but it sounded frustrated, its mandibles flaring as it pointing to the flattened cube on her sternum. That its knowledge was more oriented towards determining the best manner in which to hunt _pyode amedha_, rather than heal them, didn't help.

"Elder, I have no idea what the device is. We have no device like it, and it is certainly beyond the ability of _pyode amedha_ to create, the elements it is constructed from are not found in this planetary system." The Elder nodded, then turned to the hunter who had brought her back.

"You were unable to identify the Yautja that had been there?" The hunter shook its head.

"No Elder, I could not, it was not a member of this party however." The Elder tilted its head to one side as it considered this. After a few minutes, it reached to a side table, picking up the medical kit that had been found beside her, turning it over and examining it closely. It was similar to the medical kits each hunter wore on their armor during the hunt, but there were subtle differences. For one, each hunter's kit was usually marked with a symbol, identifying the hunter, the ship, or the clan which owned the kit, but the casing of this one bore no markings at all. It was shaped differently, more concave on the side where the amour clips were attached. And it refused to open when the Elder pressed the correct spot.

"Someone obviously assisted her by administering at least the compound. Yet the injuries are severe, and would require more treatment than she received after the fight. Only the bare minimum to sustain her life was done, and then that", the Elder pointed one long claw at the device on her chest lazily, "was applied to preserve her until she could be treated properly?" The healer nodded in agreement.

"And you state that the compound that was applied is _not_ the same as our own?" the Elder asked.

"No Elder, it is chemically and bacterially different in many respects. I believe that it is a version of the healing compound that was engineered, optimized, for use on _pyode amedha_."

"Then it is likely this case contains other equipment designed for use on her species?"

"Yes Elder. We have no way of determining the effects of our medical technology on humans, it may be beneficial, it may be terminal."

-

* * *

Blood sprayed in a fine mist as the meaty fist connected with the kid's face again. Tied to a plastic chair, he had no chance of defending himself against the brutal beating he was receiving. His attacker stepped back, raising his fist once more to hit the teenager, but a voice from the shadows stopped him mid swing.

"I think that's enough for the moment." Wen stepped forwards into the pool of light created by the bare lightbulb on the ceiling. Immaculately dressed, his presence was a strange and ominous contrast in the concrete basement room. "I'm sure our young friend here wants to give us the truth this time."

"I keep telling you, that's the truth!" The teenager was terrified. All they'd done was go to score some dope. He looked over at the bloody remains of his friend in one corner of the room.

"You really expect us to believe that monsters destroyed one of our _establishments_?" Wen sneered. The kid nodded as best he could.

"They did! We were trying to make the buy, and there was shooting inside, and then the guys inside started shooting, and we booked! This TV news van showed up, and they went over to the window and looked inside, then the wall exploded and this monster came out, tried to kill the TV people, then vanished!" Wen nodded, not believing a word the petrified teenager was saying, but allowing the charade to continue.

"Do you happen to recall who the TV people were?"

"Yeah, it was that McCullough bird, the one that's been covering all the murders!" Wen raised one eyebrow doubtfully. The story about monsters was unbelievable, but the presence of the reporter might be more of a clue. Could the reporter have decided to begin to make the news? In any event, perhaps she was a more ... pliant ... witness to events.

"How interesting. Are you sure it was Miss McCullough?"

"Yes, I'm sure! Please, let me go? We didn't do anything!" The kid was crying now, he knew the chances of his getting out of there were pretty much non-existent. All they'd wanted was to party, how did it ever get to this?

"I know, but I'm afraid I can't let you go just yet. I have more questions for you about what you saw."

Wen got answers to all of his questions by morning, before turning to the other man present who was wiping the blood off with a damp rag.

"Dispose of the bodies in the normal manner."

* * *

-

The Elder looked at the case again, noting the placement of the discolored area that was the standard indicator of the latching mechanism on medical kits. Its eyes opened slightly as an idea came to it, and it reached across to take one of the human female's hands in its own. It raised her hand, and laid it gently on the discolored area, before a click signaled the unlocking of the case, and it opened out, a small light coming on inside.

"Blue/White light, not very effective for Yautja eyes but more than adequate for human needs. It seems the designer thought it through well."

The healer examined the contents of the kit, placing each one gently on the top of the side table as it withdrew each item. Eventually, the case was empty, and the healer looked up at the Elder.

"Some of this equipment is the same as our own, some of it is slightly modified, and some of it I have never seen before, Elder."

"Can you determine the best course of treatment to heal her from what you've seen?"

"Yes Elder, I believe so. The cauterizing equipment is the same as our own, and there is a supply of regeneration gel present. Without analysis I can't be certain, but I believe it is similarly optimized for humans."

"Proceed and apply it."

"Yes Elder, we will need a supply of material from this world to complete the mixture. I do not wish to risk using off world material for fear it might contaminate the process, we have no way of knowing how her system would react compared to ours." The Elder nodded in agreement, pleased with the healer's observation, since it wouldn't have considered such a minor detail itself. Before the Elder could gesture to one of the hunters waiting outside the chamber, the hunter that had brought the female to the ship was already on its way through the doorway to fulfill the requirement. Yautja physiology was adaptive enough that the hunters could safely introduce different elements without harm, but everything known was for Yautja. The human was an unknown, and they needed to proceed with care.

The healer removed a cone shaped object from the items it had removed from the kit, placing it on to one side and before pressing the top. A fan of metal sprung out around the cone to create a flat shallow bowl, while the top of the cone extended upwards, a tube projecting out and down towards the dish as it formed. It selected several more items from the equipment removed from the kit, and set those to one side just as the hunter returned, his hands full of broken pieces of wood. The healer looked at the pieces, selected several and waved the rest away, and as the hunter dropped the rejected pieces into a waste chute, the healer powdered the selected pieces in its powerful hands, the fragments and dust falling into the bowl the cone had created.

"The material was well selected, Elder. The process should render it down to carbon and trace elements, which will work with the gel to aid in healing."

The hunter inclined its head at the compliment, especially given before the Elder itself, but made no remark, instead observing as the healer picked up a vial, appearing to contain the same blue liquid as had been used to seal her wounds. The healer opened the vial, and the difference between the two fluids was obvious, as the much thicker blue gel flowed slowly out of the vial, the healer spreading it around and over the wood remains and powder, before sealing the vial shut and placing it back to one side.

The healer then pressed against the top of the cone again, and a flash of flame came from the end of the small tube, igniting the fluid and the powdered wood in a flash of yellow/blue flame. The flames went out after a few minutes, and it scooped up a large amount of the resulting blue paste with a spatula, before holding her down with one hand and smearing the paste into the wounds on her chest. Even in her unconscious state, induced by the device on her chest, the pain was more than enough to reach her, and she began to flail her arms, her back arched high, a cry escaping her lips. The Elder and hunter watched her reaction with concern, but the healer repeated the grim process twice more, filling the chest wounds then smoothing the paste flush with the skin of her chest, before moving to her leg to finish applying the remains of the paste to the wound there.

It stepped back to admire it's efforts, then gave a rattle of surprise.

She looked up at the healer, and in a quiet, exhausted voice, whispered "Thank you."

-

The Elder and the hunter made the same surprised rattle as the healer, the hunter forgetting itself for a moment and deploying its wrist blades. The Elder gave the hunter a reproachful look, and it retracted the blades in embarrassment. The Elder stepped forwards and looked down at the human, and its respect for her went up a notch as she returned its gaze with calm eyes.

"Do you know where you are?" The Elder asked. The human shook her head slightly from side to side, wincing as she did so. She knew she was on dangerous ground right now. She had to stay focused, and choose her words with care.

"Honored Elder, I apologize, but I do not know enough of the language of Yautja to understand you." It nodded and considered how it might communicate with this human. It had many questions that required answers, the problem would be how to get them. Many Yautja learned the language of prey species, it helped them in the hunt, allowing them to listen to the conversations of prey, but with the exception of the languages of a select few species, their mouths were not capable of producing the same sounds in return. They could understand the language, they just couldn't speak it.

This human seemed to be in a similar predicament, she had said she did not know _enough_ of the Yautja language to understand, implying that she did know some. That explained how she had heard what the unblooded hunter had said the night before to reply to it. The Elder was trying to determine how to get around this communications barrier as the human raised a hand to get its attention.

"It might be easier if you use the loop recordings, Elder. You can select ones that contain the words you're looking for and play those." The Elder's eyes widened in surprise, that was a very good idea. "It's how it's been able to work in the past." The Elder let the implications of that comment go for a minute, and began searching the recordings on its loop device. It was designed to record the words of prey, and hunters used those recordings later to lure and entice other prey to them, an effective tool for any hunter.

"Jack, where are you?" it tried. She smiled at the Elder's selection of recording, a female voice, and looked around at the chamber she was in, the light giving everything a rusted red appearance.

"I am on a Yautja hunting ship, Elder. And this appears to be the healer's chamber?" The Elder nodded, pleased with itself. This might be working after all.

"How's it going?" She tried not to laugh, she knew it would take a while before the Elder would be able to splice together enough recordings to have "proper" conversations.

"Pain, Elder, but I think my injuries will heal." She inclined her head as best she could lying flat towards the healer. "Again my thanks, healer. You have honored me with your skills." The healer's eyes opened wide, mandibles twitching in a mixture of surprise and humor. It hadn't expected praise from a human, but it inclined its head to acknowledge the compliment. The Elder let out a rattle of laughter, and looked to the human, trying to find the right loop for its questions, but it saw her eyes drooping. It remembered then that this was _pyode amedha_, prey, without the same stamina and endurance as Yautja, and she must be exhausted after her battle and injuries. It had the perfect recording for this.

"You look like you could use some sleep." Her eyes blinked open, and she smiled in response. She felt like she could sleep for a week, but she got the impression that this Elder wouldn't appreciate such a delay. She knew it had to be curious about her, and would want answers, and she'd better provide them. Her injuries and weakness right now might protect her from harm, honor would prevent them from killing her while she was in this state, but Yautja weren't renowned for patience.

"It's been a long day, Elder, yes, but a good night's sleep and some food, and I'll feel much better." The Elder nodded, cursing inwardly. It turned to the hunter and rapidly gave in instructions in its own language. She waited, looking on impassively, she'd find out what the Elder was talking about one way or the other. After a few minutes of back and forth between the Elder and the hunter, with the occasional comment by the healer, the Elder turned back to her, as the healer repacked the medical kit on the side table.

"You can't stay here." "Get some sleep, love" "See you tomorrow!" She blinked a few times at the compound loop, three different recordings in sequence. This was the problem with using the loop to talk, there was no context. Eventually she pieced together the meaning, it seemed the Elder had decided she was going to go home and sleep. The interrogation would come tomorrow. The hunter stepped forwards, and manipulated the computer on its wrist, bringing up an image that hovered in the air, an image of the city from space. It leaned towards her, took her hand, and raised it until it was within the holographic projection, then looked at her, clicking a question.

She wasn't sure what it had said, but she had a pretty good idea of what it wanted. It took a little while, but eventually after many attempts to point to sections of the hologram, then waiting for the hunter to magnify the view of the area she had indicated, she was able to give it the location of her apartment. The hunter looked to the Elder, who briefly gave it more instructions in their language, before it turned off the projection.

The hunter bent over her, and lifted her easily, carrying her cradled in its arms, the medical kit hooked to its waist. The healer gave it more instructions in the Yautja language, but she was fast falling asleep, the pain of her wounds receding to a numb ache, the scent of the hunter surrounding her. Her last view before finally succumbing to her exhaustion was of being carried past a gauntlet of curious hunters, but the eyes of one seared themselves into her memory – behind the eyes of that hunter festered raw, unadulterated hatred. Of her.


	8. Aquila non capit muscas

**Aquila non capit muscas**

The hunter managed to open the balcony door without dropping her, uncloaking as it entered the apartment. It looked around for a few minutes, unsure where the human's sleeping quarters were, but eventually discovered the bedroom, and placed her gently down in the middle of her bed. It looked around the room, and went over to the dressing table, curious at the array of strange scents coming from it.

It was examining a bottle of perfume gingerly, when a soft cough from behind got its attention. It turned, and saw her looking over at it, calmly. Slowly, it replaced the bottle on the dresser, unsure if it had somehow committed a breach of protocols – this situation was unlike any it had been in before. It walked over to her and crouched down beside the bed, then after an awkward moment, reached up to its mask and disconnected the two hoses leading to its armor. As it broke the pressure of the mask from its skin, lifting the mask away, it watched the human's reactions carefully, but she didn't flinch.

She nodded respectfully as a curious scar on its forehead was revealed. Judging by the trophies on its belt, she already knew it to be an experienced hunter, but the scar, and all that it implied, meant this was a Yautja she should respect. And be wary of. She started trying to remove the tattered remains of her clothes, realizing only then that she had been mostly naked due to the efforts to reach her assorted injuries. Happily, it didn't bother her, she had no idea if Yautja had genders to begin with, she'd never asked, and it was unlikely that one would find her remotely attractive as anything other than a trophy to place on their wall.

The hunter watched her struggle for a moment, then made a decision, extending its wrist blades and gently parting the rest of her clothing. She shivered slightly as the cool metal sides of the blades came into contact with her skin once or twice, but she knew that she was still safe, at least until the Elder spoke to her. After that, it was anyone's guess, but for the moment she offered a heartfelt "Thank you" to the hunter for his help. As she spoke, she yawned, trying to put a hand over her mouth politely, and winced as both actions sent shooting pains through her. Whatever anesthetic effect the paste had provided was wearing off.

She gestured to the medical kit still hanging from the hunter's belt. "The healer did well sealing my wounds, but there is still pain." The hunter cocked its head to one side, the Yautja body language for curiosity, and retracted its wrist blades back into their housing while handing her the kit. As she pressed on the discolored area, the segments unfolding to display the contents, she noticed subtle differences between this kit and the one she had been using before. She picked out a few of the items and examined them closely, some of them she recognized from her old kit, and some she had no idea of the function of. She shrugged.

"Guess I earned a new toy this visit." The hunter looked at her curiously, but she just shook her head, it would take far too long to explain and right now she needed to concentrate on the more pressing problem of the pain. She spotted an injector tube, and lifted it out, placing one end against her stomach and her thumb on the other. She braced herself for the pain that was coming, and pressed down with her thumb to trigger the injector, but was surprised when it didn't hurt her as much as doing this usually did.

She withdrew the needle from her flesh, as a warmth began spreading through her body, her aches and pains fading to a dull glow, and stared at it. It was much narrower than the version in the kit under the bathroom sink. She put the injector tube back into its socket within the kit, knowing that the medicinal reservoir built into the casing would be able to refill the injector fully several times before it needed refilling itself, then closed the kit back up. Exploring her new gift could wait until morning. She looked at the hunter then, trying to think of a way to phrase her next question.

"Are you staying here tonight?" The hunter nodded, and she was going to say something more when a new wave of exhaustion came over her. She muttered "Good night" around a bigger yawn, and pulled the covers up to her chin, not caring about anything else at that moment. She looked into the hunter's eyes one more time, then hers closed, and soon she was fast asleep.

-

It was resting easily beside the human's bed. It knew daylight had broken long before, but the human's life signs indicated she was still sound asleep. It wondered when the Elder would arrive, although it wasn't impatient, having spent far longer periods of time virtually immobile waiting for prey in hunts in the past. Idly, it considered the events of the past few days on the planet – the trial being disrupted by the hosts relocating before the kainde amedha hatched, the death of three unblooded hunters, the discovery of this _pyode amedha_. Another Yautja was certainly involved in the latter issue, it remembered the spoor it had scented at the building it had taken the human from. It wondered when the Elder would allow the hunting party to challenge each other for the right to hunt this human, and was considering taking part, when a metal-on-metal sound from outside the bedroom got its attention.

Quickly it placed the mask back over the front of its head, connecting the pressure hoses to its armor and feeling the tug as the face seal tightened, holding the mask in place. It activated its cloaking device, fading from sight in an electromagnetic shimmer, as its sensors picked up the sound of the door to the human's nest opening. It looked quickly across at the sleeping form of the human, but she seemed undisturbed by the noises. Quietly, it moved through the door, and watched as a _pyode amedha _female made her way towards the food area.

"Hey babydoll, you awake yet? I bought you some coffffffeeeeee!" it heard the intruder call out. Most of the words made no sense to it, but the body language and tone of this human's voice gave the impression that its presence was not an intrusion, but rather that the human hunter would welcome this one's presence. Unsure as to what it should do, it resolved to wait and watch, alert for any threat to the human hunter, but not to act yet. The human female had been manipulating a device on the top of a counter in the food area, filling it with water taken from a metallic long necked tool mounted next to one wall.

As the device began to make strange bubbling noises, the human re-entered the main area, and picked up a small hand-held device from the low table. It tensed as the human depressed a button on the device, and was startled when the electronic box the female pointed the device at suddenly powered up and started displaying images, the sounds of human voices coming from within. It relaxed a fraction as it processed the human's actions, the box was obviously some form of communications device she had activated. It tensed up once more however when the human female moved purposefully towards the bedroom, and its sleeping charge.

It was only a few steps behind the _pyode amedha_ as she entered, and it watched with alarm as the stranger turned and dropped down to sit on the foot of the bed and began bouncing on it rhythmically.

"Wakey wakey, sleepy head!" it heard the human state in a sing-song voice, before reaching over to grasp one of the human hunter's ankles, and then shake it gently. It realized too late that the human was grasping at the female hunter's damaged leg, and could only watch as she let out a scream of pain, jerking upright from her sleep.

Marisa let out a shriek as her friend screamed, and fell off the end of the bed onto her butt. She picked herself up and was turning to ask her friend what was wrong when she stopped. As she had woken and sat up, the covers had fallen from around her, laying bare the thick blue-tinted areas, rimmed with angry red pink skin of her chest and stomach. More disturbingly, her clothes from the night before, which had laid on the bed under the covers, were revealed in all their torn and blood stained glory. Marisa let out a gasp and ran to the head of the bed, trying to put her arms around her whimpering friend but not knowing if her touch would cause more pain, ending up with her arms fluttering helplessly between them.

"Oh hon, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to ... Are you OK?" Marisa was trying hard not to panic, as her friend curled up into a ball, holding her leg gingerly. Marisa could see the bottom of her leg had more of the blue stuff on it, and she worried. She gingerly place her hand on her friend's back, and said softly "Do you need to see a doctor, babydoll?" After a moment, her friend took a shuddering breath inwards.

"No," she croaked, "but if you grab my leg like that again, _you_ will.". She turned and grinned weakly at Marisa. "What are you doing here?" Marisa looked embarrassed.

"I got that delivery of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee this morning, I figured I'd bring some over and surprise you with the good stuff to wake up to ..." Marisa's voice trailed off and she looked seriously at her friend. "Are you _really_ all right babydoll? What _is_ that stuff anyhow? What happened?"

She levered herself into a sitting position, pulling the covers back over herself in the process.

"If I tell you nothing, that everything is OK, will you let it be?" Marisa picked up the pile of bloodstained clothes, noticing that there was more of the strange blue stuff on them as well.

"Sure. For about thirty seconds, beloved." She sighed.

"Marisa, I'm serious. You could get into a lot of trouble if you don't let this go." She raised a hand to forestall the reply on Marisa's lips. "I know, you don't care. But I do care, about you, and you don't want to know. Trust me." Marisa thought this over for the promised thirty seconds.

"If you're in trouble, I'm going to help if I can, you know that babydoll." She grinned, trying to defuse the tension. "Is this anything to do with your man problem?" She looked at Marisa with her mouth open for a few seconds, trying to remember how to breathe, before doubling over, trying to laugh and not cry out at the pain at the same time. After a minute, she composed herself, and tried to thwap Marisa with a pillow, without much success.

"No, it's actually more like a case of a woman problem." She grinned as Marisa's eyes opened wide, then got serious again. "I know you hon, you're not going to let go of this until I tell you. I can't though, if I do you could get hurt, bad." Marisa didn't hesitate.

"Your point?" She sighed again, as Marisa continued. "Babydoll, I'm a big girl now. So spill."

It watched the two humans interact, confused about the hunter's reaction to the other human having caused her pain. As they spoke, it began to understand that this new human was a friend to the hunter, a conclusion it felt was confirmed when the hunter playfully attacked the newcomer. It relaxed more, but kept a careful eye on the two, appreciating this opportunity to observe and learn more about this prey species. It tried to move so that it wasn't blocking the doorway, where it had halted as the second human jumped onto the bed, and saw the human hunter's eyes flicker up, noticing its cloaked movement.

Marisa was waiting for her friend to just admit defeat and tell her what was going on, when she saw her eyes focus on something over her shoulder at the doorway. Marisa turned, but didn't see anyone. She was about to turn back when out of the corner of her eye she saw something ... or didn't ... it was like looking at an outline in glass. She looked harder, trying to see what was there, when it _moved_, shimmering towards her impossibly fast!

"_She sees me!"_ it thought to itself, and clenched its fist to deploy its wrist blades, moving towards Marisa. Humans couldn't know of the Yautja.

"No!" She called commandingly. She saw the hunter's shape pause for a second, a query of clicks and growls coming from nowhere. Marisa didn't know what was going on, but she felt the air move around her and could see an outline inches from her chest. She didn't dare breathe as she heard animal sounds coming from somewhere in front of her.

It halted, almost making the killing thrust. The Elder had said to respect this _pyode amedha_, until they knew more about her worthiness, and this other one was her friend. It might offend her to kill her friend, and that might interfere with the Elder being able to learn more. It was still torn between the edict against prey learning of the existence of Yautja, and the instructions of the Elder.

"Marisa, listen to me very carefully." Her friend's voice sounded like it was very far away, a combination of the blood thundering in her ears and her friend speaking softly. "Don't move. Don't say anything. Don't do anything. Trust me, if you do, you're dead, and there's no way I can stop it. Just stay perfectly still." Marisa caught herself trying to nod, instead doing exactly as she was told. She didn't know what was going on, but she could feel she was in grave danger. She thought about the blue patches on her friend's chest, and began to wonder what they were covering. She could hear her friend's voice, patiently explaining, although she had no idea who she was talking to.

"This is my friend. She is no threat to me, or to you. She will not reveal the presence of Yautja on this planet."

"_Yautja? This planet?"_ she thought in confusion.

"This is my nest. If you wish to challenge me for the right to hunt this _pyode amedha_ later, then do so. But in my nest, she is my friend, not prey." She was thinking fast, trying to remember the right buttons to push that might persuade the hunter to back down.

Awareness started dawning on her, her friend was pleading for her, Marisa's, life. Whatever that shape was, it wanted to kill her? After a few seconds, she watched dumbfounded as the air in front of her sparkled, and slowly a shape came into view.

The human was right. For the moment, the status given her by the Elder meant that her nest was to be respected. To hunt prey within it would be to dishonor the human's nest, and if this human behaved as Yautja in that as she had done in other respects, that would involve a challenge. The hunter had no doubts that it would win such a challenge, she still was, after all, just _pyode amedha_, but the Elder would not be pleased. It cursed silently to itself, and disengaged the cloak. If its presence was now unavoidably known, perhaps it could attempt to salvage the situation with a show of intimidation, to persuade this human female that it would be unwise if it did reveal their presence.

"Whatever you do, hon, don't move."

As it became clearer, the first thing she noticed was a pair of swords pointed at her chest, then the arm they were attached to. As the shape became clearer, her eyes flickered from place to place, trying to take in all that she was looking at in one go, details resolving themselves slowly. It was _big_, maybe eight feet tall, and stocky too. Some sort of gray metal armor covered its shins and thighs, as well as its shoulders, chest, and back, topped with a mask of the same material, a grotesque face marked into the metal. Against its skin it wore some kind of fishnet body stocking, but its skin ... creamy white, with dapples of brown underneath the fishnet material, the bulges of obvious muscles under the surface pressing the skin taut.

Marisa couldn't resist the urge, and looked around its midsection, but her somewhat odd curiosity was thwarted by some kind of loincloth like garment. The arm that the blades at her chest were attached to withdrew, slowly, and the ... whatever ... relaxed its large claw-like hand. With a soft ringing click, the blades retracted back into some kind of forearm armor, and she saw a similar looking object on its other forearm. It stepped back a few steps and stood there, and even though its eyes were hidden behind reflective lenses in its mask, she could feel it watching her, waiting. She almost screamed as her friend put a hand on her arm.

"It's OK hon, you can breathe now." Marisa let out the breath she had been holding with a gasp, then stared once more at the being in front of her. She rounded on her friend and thumped her on the shoulder, hard, ignoring her friend's sharp intake of breath and the wince that crossed her face.

"You almost gave me a heart attack!"

-

"So let me make sure I have this straight." They were both sitting on the bed with mugs of coffee in hand, the hunter stood by the doorway watching them intently. She'd managed to find out a clean jogging suit to wear to cover herself. "They're a bunch of aliens who come here planning on hunting people for sport?" She nodded, smiling slightly at Marisa's tone. "But this time they came here to hunt those candy things?"

"They're called _kainde amedha_, it means hard meat in the Yautja language. Yes."

"So why was one of them in your bedroom? And what's all that blue stuff?" Marisa eyed her friend. "You aren't ... you know ..." She laughed, Marisa always had a one track mind, even now!

"No, we're not! I don't even know if it's male or female, let alone if the two species can mate. Jeez!" A growl from the corner told both of them what the hunter thought of the idea too. She sighed then, dreading trying to explain the rest to Marisa.

"The blue 'stuff' is a healing paste. It's in my bedroom because it brought me home last night because I wasn't in any condition to make it back myself."

"What happened?"

"I got into an argument with two _kainde amedha_. I lost." She figured it might be best to avoid mentioning her own hunting activities if she could get away with it. Marisa might be able to deal with the idea of killing aliens, but killing humans might be another thing entirely. Then again, it might have been a better topic to cover than Marisa's next question.

"How did you manage to get into a fight with a couple of aliens? And how do you even know them? You told it I wouldn't say anything about them, so I figure they kill anyone who knows about them, right?" She nodded slowly. "Well you know about them, and they haven't killed you yet. And I guess they bandaged you up too." She sighed and considered her response for a minute, then stood up unsteadily. Both Marisa and the hunter made as if to help her, but she waved them both off.

"I guess the easiest way to answer is to show you hon. Promise you won't hate me?" Marisa looked at her friend with one of 'those' looks, before sniffing disdainfully.

"I won't hate you babydoll, you should know me better than that by now." Marisa walked over to stand beside her friend, and put an arm around her shoulder gently.

She looked at Marisa and smiled softly, then reached over to the wall and pressed against it. They both stepped back as the door opened, the hunter moving across to get a better view. Marisa gasped as the weapons attached to the wall came into view, her friend crouching down to open the bottom drawer inside the hidden closet, revealing a near complete set of hunter's armor. The hunter clicked and growled in appreciation, as she straightened up again, lifting the mask from its shelf gently, and turning to her friend, who stood there in stunned silence.

"I know about them because one of them has been training me to be a hunter ever since I was ten years old, hon."

For once, Marisa was speechless. She looked at the mask in her friend's hands, at the one covering the hunter's face, at her friend's face, then back to the mask, unable to come up with a reply. She jumped, startled, as a voice came from the hunter.

"You got a name?" Her friend grinned at Marisa's reaction.

"You get used to that, don't worry. They can understand us, but they can't speak human languages, their mouths are shaped all wrong for it. They can play recorded voices though." She turned her attention to the hunter. "I don't know it's name, it never told me. I only know the mark it wears from its blooding." She traced the pattern of a mark on the forehead of the mask in her hands, and the hunter nodded, but didn't recognize it. It made a note to draw the symbol for the Elder when it had the opportunity.

"Can I hold it?" Marisa asked, curiously, and her friend handed it across. She raised it to her face.

"Press it to your face firmly, it will activate. It won't do much, it needs to be connected to the rest of the armor to have the full power it needs, but it has internal batteries or something for basic stuff when it's not connected." She did as instructed, but quickly pulled the mask away from her face.

"Everything looked so weird!" Her friend nodded.

"The default mode is a thermal one, it displays levels of heat. It can see a lot more, but not when it's disconnected." Marisa handed the mask back to her friend, and waited until she had put it back on the shelf.

"So what's it like in all of that stuff?" Her friend looked away for a moment.

"I don't know, I haven't worn it all at the same time yet." Marisa blinked.

"Why not?" Her friend took a long time to answer.

"Because I'm afraid that once I'm in all of it, I might lose myself to it. That somehow, I will stop being human."

"Don't be silly babydoll. No matter what you did, you'd still be human. You're too strong to let yourself be lost like that. I've known you for too many years to believe anything else." She didn't reply to this, not trusting herself to talk about the hunting she'd been doing, and her recent self-discovery. Hopefully, they could avoid the subject altogether - now that Marisa had seen the armor, maybe she'd be content with the idea that her friend was only hunting _kainde amedha_. They returned to the bed and sat on the edge.

"So the alien that's been training you gave you all of that?"

"A piece at a time. I had to earn it all, including this." She patted the case beside her. "Medical kit.", she explained. Marisa nodded.

"What happens when you've earned all of it?"

"I guess it will consider me ready." Marisa looked at her friend, something wasn't right about the way she said that.

"Ready for what?" Her friend looked her straight in the eye.

"To be hunted."


	9. Homo sum humani a mi nihil alienum puto

**Homo sum humani a mi nihil alienum puto**

They stood looking at the charred wreckage that had once been a building. Both men were bundled up well against the cold, although the entourage of bodyguards each had brought, standing a respectful distance away, didn't have the same luxury. Both groups eyed each other warily, suspicion evident on their faces. They might be vaguely considered to have a common interest, but they weren't allies by any means.

"Did your sources have anything else on the cause of the fire?" Ito asked. Wen shook his head, huddling his head down into his scarf.

"No, they both claimed to have left when the 'monster' they saw came through the wall." Ito looked at him impassively.

"Both of them stuck with the story of a monster?" Wen nodded. "Curious. I wouldn't imagine they would maintain a lie given your rather direct methods of questioning."

"Both of them were addicts, they had come to get a fix. Both men said the 'monster' wore armor. Perhaps in their drugged state they misperceived someone wearing tactical armor?" Ito nodded slowly, this would be a perfectly plausible explanation. Addicts in need of more drugs were unreliable sources at the best of times. He started across the road, taking Wen by surprise, and he had to hurry to regain his place walking beside the slim japanese. The bodyguards of both men straightened up and joined the two, forming a ring around them both.

As they reached the sidewalk beside where a window had once been in a wall now collapsed, Ito turned slightly.

"They said the creature came out here, at the hatch?" Wen nodded once more. He was cold, and hadn't had much sleep after questioning the two teenagers, but when Ito had asked for a private meeting here, he had grudgingly agreed. He wondered why Issoti hadn't been invited, but was sure the reasons would become clear in time. He glanced around, watching his men to make sure they were alert, as Ito kicked at a melted pile of black plastic, partially covered in debris from the building.

"It would seem that your sources were being truthful when they said a TV crew was here. This was once, I believe, a camera."

"Then perhaps we should invite Miss McCullough to meet with us for a conversation?" Wen grinned, but Ito shook his head.

"Her disappearance might cause others to take up where she left off, it would be inconvenient at the moment. She may however be willing to cooperate with us if your sources were accurate that this creature attempted to kill her." Wen thought about the idea for a few minutes, while Ito stepped onto the pile of charred rubble, wandering seemingly aimlessly through the remains.

"You keep saying 'creature', do you know something I don't?" Ito didn't reply for some minutes, searching through the ash and other debris with his feet. Occasionally he bent down, brushing away the dust, to lift up a flattened plate of metal, but it would only be the melted remains of shell casings, fused together in the heat. Wen began to get irritated by the silence.

"Why are we here anyhow?" Ito smiled to himself. Wen was so easy to manipulate. It would only be a short step to controlling him. He stopped as he noticed something in the rubble, and as he bent down to examine it closer, he finally responded.

"Have you considered how these attacks make us all vulnerable?" Wen snorted in disgust.

"I sorta noticed. What's your point, Ito?"

"Since the attackers leave no witnesses, who is to say who is behind this?" Wen looked nervously around, making sure his bodyguards were close. "Perhaps wise men, forward thinking men, would see this as an opportunity to further themselves."

"Quit being so cryptic. What are you on about?" Ito reached into the ash and picked out a few objects, then stood to face Wen, a cruel smile on his face.

"Three organizations is too unwieldy a setup, don't you think?"

"You thinking of retiring?" Wen retorted. "You only just got the job to begin with." Ito laughed, but there was little mirth in his voice.

"No, but perhaps it's time for our Italian friend to do so, for ... health reasons? He is too random, too undisciplined. This is a business, but he will never treat it as such. We are at war and he can only think of hitting out randomly. No, we must be organized and disciplined if we are to win this war." Ito stepped back onto the sidewalk, not stopping but heading across the road back to their cars. Once more Wen had to play catch-up, as Ito continued speaking.

"No-one can say who the enemy is. While the enemy may attack us ..." Wen grinned as he finally started to see where Ito was going with all of this.

"We can hit him, blame it on whoever's attacking us, and because they're hitting us at the same time it'll sound true." Ito nodded as they reached his car.

"We should discuss this further later. I look forwards to hearing your thoughts on it. In the meantime, contact Miss McCullough. Tell her that we wish to speak with her about the murders, and last night." Wen grinned and shook Ito's hand, before moving off to his own car. Ito watched him leave, gently fingering the objects he had recovered from the wrecked building. He looked down briefly at the small silver metallic points, tracing sensitive fingertips over the pitted surface.

"_A short step to achieve control. And ultimately, a far shorter one to replacement."_

-

* * *

-

"You're crazy, babydoll! You're learning how to do all this stuff so some alien can come along and kill you?" Marisa was shaking her head incredulously, seriously questioning her friend's sanity right now. Her friend laughed.

"That's not quite how it works, but pretty much, yes."

"Then the answer is simple! If this alien is waiting until you're good enough, just don't get better!" She shook her head sadly.

"You think I don't know that hon? But I can't do that."

"Why not?" She took a swig of the almost cold coffee, looking embarrassed.

"It just wouldn't be right." Marisa looked at her in disbelief.

"Oh come on! You're trying to be a better hunter so this alien will come kill you. That's suicidal."

"It's not certain that it will win, hon. The whole point is it's waiting until I'm a worthy challenge for it, waiting until I have a chance of winning."

"And what happens if you win?"

"I don't know."

"Partay on dudes!" They both started and looked towards the doorway at the looped recording. As the figure turned its cloak off and became visible, she stood, one hand on Marisa's shoulder telling her to stay sat on the bed. Once upright, she crossed her hands across her chest gingerly, and inclined her head. Marisa watched as this new alien stalked towards her friend, unsure of what was going on. The hunter stopped close to her friend, and glanced across to the still open closet. It looked at the mask and armor on display, before turning back, and almost hesitantly, it placed one claw on her friend's shoulder, then withdrew it, clicking something in the alien language. Her friend looked up and allowed her hands to drop by her sides again.

"Welcome, Elder." The Elder nodded its head, then looked at Marisa, cocking its head. It trilled a question, and the hunter behind it answered with a long growling reply. The Elder turned it's attention back to the still standing human female, the loop asking the question for it.

"Who's this then?" Her friend straightened up.

"The human is my friend, Elder", she replied simply, assuming that the hunter had already explained the situation from before. The Elder was silent for a moment, then the loop started again.

"If that's the way you want it, sure." She started to breathe a little easier. The Elder had been a big question mark, it would be within its rights by protocol to kill both of them, Marisa for knowing about Yautja, and her for allowing Marisa to find out to begin with. For the moment, Marisa was safe. She just hoped her friend wouldn't do or say anything to change that. Her heart started beating faster as the Elder reached up and disconnected its mask from the armor, and lifted it away from its face.

How would Marisa handle seeing a Yautja for the first time?

As the mask lifted clear, Marisa gasped audibly. She had thought the masks represented what the hunters looked like underneath, but she realized that they were nothing like the face she now saw. Close set sunken eyes looked intently at her, cold and calculating, this hunter's skin darker than that of the one that had brought her friend home. Its mouth was small, lined with sharp-looking teeth, with four single-toothed mandibles surrounding it.

Marisa winced as the mandibles spread wide and this Elder alien roared at her, but she stood her ground, trusting her friend would help if she was in danger. The Elder seemed satisfied that she had flinched, at least, and turned back to speak with the other hunter. Marisa noticed belatedly the strange dreadlock looking braids on the alien's head, and looked to her friend's braided hair. She wondered how many other traits of the aliens her friend had adopted.

She watched Marisa flinch, but was proud for her friend as she handled a Yautja challenge roar without freaking out. The first time she'd been on the receiving end of one of those roars she'd wet herself. Admittedly, she'd been ten years old at the time, but still. While the Elder questioned the hunter that had brought her home, she sat on the edge of the bed next to Marisa again, took one of her hands in both of hers, and squeezed it gently.

"Welcome to my world, hon." Marisa looked at her, a slightly glazed look in her eyes.

"How the hell did you manage to get mixed up with all of this, babydoll?" She sighed, casting her mind back to that day, when her life changed for ever.

"I saw it, when I was a kid. It was hunting, I saw it kill someone. I don't know why, but I picked up a rock and threw it at its head." Marisa giggled despite herself.

"Babydoll? That sounds _so_ you." She smiled, and continued.

"It came over and I thought it was going to kill me too, so I picked up another rock and threw it, and another. Then it was right on top of me, and it picked me up by my neck. I kept kicking, and kicking, but it was just standing there looking at me.

"It put me down again and turned around, and I screamed at it that I was going to kill it. It turned back and those wrist blades they all have were at my throat before I knew it. But I knew the thing was laughing at me. So I told it again, I was going to kill it. It looked at me, and took its mask off, and roared at me, but I told it again I was still going to kill it."

"It dropped me back down, put its mask on, and disappeared. Then I heard a voice say 'I'll be back'. I thought that was the last of it." She took a deep breath.

"It showed up six months later. Remember the fields down by the railroad tracks?" Marisa nodded. "I was down there chopping weeds down with a stick, and it showed up. It came out of nowhere, took hold of my arm, and guided it, making it do different moves with the stick against the weeds. That was the start of my training, although I didn't know it at the time." She looked up and noticed the Elder and the other hunter were watching her, listening intently.

"That's how it went. Every six months or so it would show up from nowhere, and teach me things. It got me to start training while it wasn't there too. I started doing gymnastics, eating properly, started doing cross-country running." Marisa blinked.

"I remember that, you got so serious and started doing all that keep fit stuff." She nodded.

"It told me what I needed to do to be able to kill it. I learned that it was stronger, faster. That it was well equipped. It was pushing me all the time to try and learn how I could fight it. When I was older, every time it came I would try what I'd learned, but it never worked, and I learned to hate two words - _not yet_. That's what it always would say, _not yet_. Later, it taught me how to stalk, hide, hunt. And it was teaching me their ethics, their codes." She looked at her empty coffee cup, and Marisa grinned, taking it from her hands. She watched Marisa walk casually past the two hunters to fetch the coffee, and once more was proud of her friend for how well she was handling all of this.

As Marisa was refilling the coffee cups, the Elder walked to the closet, and lifted the mask out. It held it out to her, and the loop played again.

"Who taught you that?" She looked up at the Elder, and traced the symbol on the mask once more. The Elder's eyes widened and its mandibles flared in recognition, but it said nothing, just nodding. It walked back over to the hunter, leaving the mask in her hands, as Marisa returned.

"I didn't know if they'd drink any of this, so I didn't bring any for them", she said, handing a cup over. She laughed, blowing gently to cool the coffee down a little. Marisa gently prodded her friend, avoiding her injuries. "Keep talking babydoll." She smiled, her friend could be very single minded at times. She tried to decide what else her friend should know about. She looked at the mask, and held it up slightly.

"This was the first piece of the armor I earned, from the first time I watched it clean a trophy without throwing up. Every few visits, when I'd passed some sort of milestone or test, it would give me another piece. It's all been designed to fit me, normal Yautja armor won't." The Elder played a loop, pointing at the medical kit as it did so.

"Designed to fit me." It was her own voice, she'd just said that. She looked at the medical kit, then to the Elder.

"The medical kit was designed for me too? To work on humans?" The Elder nodded. She looked at the kit for a moment before giving a little shrug, then she continued with her story.

"Sometimes it gave me weapons as well, when it figured I could use them. But I also started a collection of my own." She pointed to the arsenal affixed to the wall and door of the hidden closet. "Ah crap!" she exclaimed, suddenly. Marisa looked at her with concern. "I lost my spear and dart gun last night!"

"Huh?"

"Last night, when I got into the fight with those two _kainde amedha_. I used the dart gun to take out the face huggers, and the spear to kill one of the adults, but I couldn't get the spear out of the corpse before the other adult got hold of me. It'll be ruined by now." The Elder was speaking rapidly with the hunter as it heard this, and after a few minutes said something that sounded like a command. The hunter nodded, before cloaking and leaving the bedroom, but she didn't say anything. Marisa noticed as well, but kept silent, she was still unsure of how to act around these aliens. Her friend had called the one still here "Elder", she figured it was something high ranking, and she didn't want to piss it off. Something her friend said aroused her curiosity.

"Face huggers?"

"The first stage of _kainde amedha_. The queen lays eggs containing these things, their sole purpose in life is to find a host, and latch onto their face. They implant a _kainde amedha_ embryo in the host, then fall off and die."

"What happens then?"

"The embryo grows inside the host, then when it's big enough it eats its way through, killing them. A day, two days later, it'll have grown to its full size, an adult _kainde amedha_." Marisa shuddered at the thought, but her friend was looking thoughtful.

"The only way that face huggers could be around is if there's a queen somewhere laying the eggs they hatch from." She looked to the Elder.

"Elder, is there a queen in the city? I thought they were only used in the hunting grounds." The Elder thought for a minute, trying to find the right loop recordings.

"Yes." "I haven't got a clue." "That shouldn't be there." She nodded as she pieced together the compound loop. Obviously, the presence of a queen wasn't planned for by the hunters. She had a sudden thought.

"Elder, the face huggers I killed were acting strangely. They're usually fast, but these ones were sluggish, like they were asleep. They were being carried by the hard meat." The Elder's eyes widened, and it trilled a question before remembering this _pyode amedha_ didn't understand it.

"You sure this." "Whatcha see?"

"Yes Elder." She thought for a moment. "There's something else, Elder. One of the _kainde amedha_ was exposed to a narcotic drug of this world, and it seemed to be affected by it in the same way humans are. I didn't know _kainde amedha_ were susceptible to such a thing." The Elder nodded as it digested this new information. It knew that _kainde amedha_ were resilient, there shouldn't be anything on this world that would cause such a reaction. Then a thought occurred to it.

"Narcotic drug of this world." Her voice again. "What's that?" She blinked, trying to remember.

"It could have been any of several drugs, Elder. It would have been a substance that affects the chemicals in a human being to induce different states emotionally or physically." The Elder nodded again, and fell silent whilst it processed this. The silence dragged on, until Marisa spoke up again.

"So how many of these candy things have you killed?"

"I don't know, until the past few days I've only hunted them half a dozen times. Almost ended up dead the first time." Marisa gasped.

"_What?_"

"They're called hard meat for good reason, enough that a Yautja isn't considered a hunter until it's done the _kainde amedha_ trial. They're fast and strong, but they're very single minded. Some of them are intelligent, kind of, but most of them, the drones, are pretty dumb."

"A queen on the other hand ... those are the worst ones. I've never seen one, but I learned about them. Three times as big, ten times as vicious, a hundred times more dangerous. Yautja can only hunt them in teams, and they always lose hunters in the fight." She grinned ferally.

"That's my 'woman problem'." Marisa laughed, as her friend continued, half to herself.

"The only way I can take them on is if I use my speed, keep moving, confuse them. First time I hunted them, I wasn't fast enough, one of them stuck its tail in my stomach." Marisa winced in sympathy, she could tell from the look on her friend's face as she recounted the story that it had been a bad time.

"What happened?", she asked softly

"The hunter that's trained me killed it, then used the medical kit to save my life." She said it so matter-of-factly that Marisa was taken aback.

"And they almost killed you again last night?"

"Yes."

"_Good!_" Marisa declared with some venom in her voice.

"Huh?" She asked, not understanding.

"If you still can't win against those things, the alien isn't going to think you're good enough yet." She shook her head at her friend's logic.

"I _can_ win against them hon. The night before last, I killed three of them, and I got one of the two that attacked me last night." Marisa's face fell, there went another good thought. The Elder's attention was focused on her friend again, she noticed, before she realized something.

"Did you take trophies from them too?", she asked, curious.

"I wasn't in any shape to collect any from the ones last night, but the ones before, I took my trophy from one of them."

"Where on earth do you store an alien skull?" She grinned.

"I don't. I figured out that would be a problem a long time ago, so instead of heads, I take teeth instead." Marisa laughed, amused at her friend's ingenuity and repulsed slightly by the way she was talking about such a grisly subject.

"Can I see?" She blinked, suddenly realizing this was dangerous ground.

"_Dammit. She's going to see ..." _She sighed deeply. It was inevitable it would come out eventually. Her only hope was that whatever Marisa's reaction was, it didn't alarm the Elder into considering her a threat and deciding to kill her. She kicked herself for not realizing the risk, but swore to herself that if the Elder went for Marisa, she'd fight for her as best she could. She'd gotten her friend into this, if it got her friend killed she could never live with herself.

"If you like." Marisa wondered at her friend's hesitation, and the look on her face was almost scared. She wondered what these alien teeth looked like, that her friend would be so concerned about showing them to her. For a second she considered taking back her request to see the trophies, but decided not to. She wanted to prove to her friend that she would accept her no matter what, and would still be her friend even with these revelations about a secret life she never realized her friend lived.

The two of them stood, and moved back to the hidden closet. She crouched down, feeling more limber than earlier. She guessed the blue paste was doing its job, she was almost at the stage where she could ignore where she'd been so badly gored the night before. Slowly, bracing herself inwardly for the reaction she dreaded from Marisa, she opened the top drawer, before opening the compartment where her trophies from the other night had been placed.

Marisa saw them, four silvery cube like objects in what looked like a box of whitish pebbles. She bent down to look closer at the alien teeth, when she started, and she took a second look at the pebbles. She let out a gasp, and looked at her friend.

"Babydoll? Are those what I think they are?", she asked, quietly.

Her friend just looked at her, and Marisa's heart plummeted seeing the pain and fear of rejection behind her friend's eyes. Emotions conflicted within her, her loyalty and love for her friend against the realization _she hunted human beings_. She could sense the Elder move to stand behind them and look down into the drawer, and could hear its chittering and clicking, she supposed of admiration of her friend's trophies. Marisa had a sudden thought.

"The news said there was a murder at the mall yesterday, after we were there. I was going to ask you if you'd seen it." She braced herself, not wanting to ask, but knowing she had to. "That was you, wasn't it?" Her friend could only nod, and Marisa could see tears begin to well up in her eyes.

"There were two of them, they wanted to attack and rape me. I let one go.", her friend said, almost a whisper. Marisa didn't know what to think, asking the questions almost mechanically, in inexorable order.

"And the other one?" The tears were beginning to drop onto her friend cheeks now.

"I killed him."

"For a trophy?"

"No." She paused for a second. "He wasn't worth taking them from.", she whispered reflectively.

"So why did you kill him?"

"He would have killed me. I could see it in his eyes, they were going to have their fun then leave me in a ditch somewhere, dead."

"So it was self defense then."

"I wish it was, hon, I truly do. But it wasn't. All I saw in them was prey." Marisa thought for a minute. She could feel the presence of the Elder behind them, towering over her, but all she thought of was the look on her friend's face. With a flash of insight, she considered everything that her friend had told her about these hunters and their ethics.

"Have you ever killed anyone that didn't have a weapon?" Her friend snorted.

"No, that isn't an honorable kill. They consider humans to be prey, but they only hunt the prey that is armed, a challenge."

Marisa smiled softly, and gently reached up one hand to wipe her friend's tears away.

"It's you, isn't it? The one that's been attacking all the organized crime places. You've been hunting the bad guys down?" Her friend looked at her, surprised. Once more she had to re-evaluate her friend's perception. She could only nod. Marisa took a deep breath then, and made a decision that would change both of their lives for eternity.

"Then every night I'll say a prayer for you to have good hunting, babydoll." Her friend looked at her for a quiet second, then burst into tears.

As her friend dropped to her knees, Marisa joined her on the floor and wrapped her arms around her friend, and rocked her softly.

-

The Elder watched the two humans curiously. It didn't understand the fear-stink scent that the human hunter had been giving off so strongly as she showed her friend her trophies. Weren't they taken honorably, something to be admired? Its opinion of this second _pyode amedha_ went up a little as it watched her comfort and reassure the human hunter, and it realized why she had been afraid. The second human hadn't known she hunted humans as well as hard meat, she had expected her friend to reject her because she hunted their own kind. It snorted to itself, it had already determined that this second human would act as a true friend would. Its reaction to everything the human hunter had said so far had been acceptance, even if not always understanding.

As the two humans embraced, the Elder looked away, not wishing to embarrass the human hunter by witnessing its moment of weakness. The trophies it had collected, whilst not exactly the sort prized by Yautja, it believed to be honorably gained, and proof that this human was indeed honored prey. It regretted that it had already been claimed by another to hunt, it was sure that she would be a challenge worthy of an Elder's skills, and to be honest, it was getting jaded with the ease of its hunts in recent years. It hadn't considered the idea of training prey to be such a challenge, and admired the thinking of the Elder that had chosen this one. It was a method it would have to consider employing at some point itself. It was sure that the wait as the prey gained in skills would be more than worth it for the hunt at the end.

As it considered this, its gaze fell on the mask, still resting on the bed where the human hunter had left it. Idly it picked the mask up, to see how it had been crafted to work for a human. It flipped the mask over, and examined the electronics inside. Its eyes widened as it noticed something that was most certainly not part of a Yautja mask. In fact, it didn't even look like it was of Yautja manufacture, like the cube that had preserved the human's life, and some of the other items inside the medical kit. It turned back to the two humans, and stepped forwards to stand next to the human hunter. It waited for the human to acknowledge it's presence, raising her tear streaked face to the Elder. It ignored the look that the other human gave it, instead thrusting the mask towards the human hunter.

She looked up at the Elder, not understanding why it was handing her the mask. She felt Marisa's grip tighten, and was comforted by her presence, and she took the mask from the Elder. It gestured to her to place it against her face, and hesitantly she did so, then stiffened as she felt the Elder press it against her face firmly. The electronics in the mask came alive, and her vision shifted, heat patterns in the room coming into focus to give her a strangely colored view of the world. She blinked, cycling the vision mode until it came to the visible light spectrum, a mode that had been built into this mask just for her.

She heard the Elder clicking beside her, and was about to remind it that she couldn't understand the Yautja language, when she noticed text scrolling across the bottom of her vision.

"Do you understand?", she read. She gasped. The mask was translating?

"Yes Elder", she replied, a tremor running through her. She heard the Elder give the Yautja equivalent of a laugh, but the scrolling text didn't appear. Obviously that wasn't something that could be translated. She reached up and pressed against the mask, allowing the Elder to remove its claw, and looked up at it. It shook its head.

"That is not a Yautja device." She nodded, noticing that the hunter that had brought her home was entering the bedroom. It didn't know she could understand it as it spoke to the Elder.

"I found pieces, Elder, but nothing was salvageable. One piece did show evidence of heavy damage from _kainde amedha_ blood."

Marisa watched, silently, still trying to come to grips with the idea that her best friend, her friend for most of their lives, had killed people. She remembered as well that her friend had stopped the hunter from killing her, had argued for her life, and she realized that if it had come down to it, her friend would have fought the hunter. She listened as her friend had answered the noises this Elder had made, speaking the Yautja language, and figured that somehow the mask must be translating. It was obvious this was news to her friend as well. She turned slightly as the hunter from before came back, at least she assumed it was the same one, but all she could do was listen to the clicks, grunts, growls, and purring sounds they made.

"A pity." She looked at the hunter, then Marisa, then back to the Elder.

"Elder, does it mean my spear?" The hunter stepped backwards. _How did the human ... _The Elder laughed.

"It appears that the human's armor has been enhanced with additional tools, including a translator of some description."

"There is no such device, Elder."

"Not Yautja, no. Obviously the human's equipment contains technology of other species than our own." The hunter nodded slowly.

"A pity that it does not include the ability to speak properly, Elder", the hunter remarked sarcastically. The Elder nodded, then looked down to consider the human. After a few minutes, it reached a decision.

"Equip yourself." She looked up at the Elder in surprise.

"I don't understand, Elder."

"There is a _kainde amedha_ queen at large, and it is producing eggs. Given enough time, it will begin an infestation within the city that humans are ill equipped to deal with. You are at least capable of hunting _kainde amedha_, I require you to hunt. Equip yourself." The Elder was blunt. It had wasted enough time trying to determine how to communicate the situation to this human. The translator made its life much easier now.

Marisa looked at her friend, she'd started trembling. She couldn't understand the Elder's words, but whatever it had said it had upset her friend.

Her heart was thumping in her chest. She knew what the Elder meant – it wanted her to don her armor and hunt hard meat. Part of her was ecstatic, a Yautja Elder had invited ... no, _commanded_ her to participate in a _kainde amedha_ hunt. But at what cost? She had never worn the armor completely, she wasn't even certain it was complete. Not to mention she was missing her best weapons against the hard meat. What would the other Yautja think? She wasn't ready for this, she was just _pyode amedha_, a human. _Prey_. What right did she have to hunt alongside Yautja?

The Elder grew impatient, almost as if it had read her mind and heard her doubts.

"You wish to be worthy prey for your teacher. Now is your time to prove that worth. That you are _pyode amedha_ is not your fault, we are born as we are born. But you have been trained as Yautja, you have taken trophies. You have hunted _kainde amedha_ before. If you were Yautja you would be blooded and honored amongst us. You aren't, but as long as you insist on acting like it, as Elder I require you to hunt. Comply, or I will challenge you for dishonoring the one who has taught you."

She stood, removing the mask from her face, and _growled_ at the Elder. Marisa fell backwards in shock, whatever had been said had made her friend angry and she saw something in her face. Cold. Dangerous. For a moment, despite their friendship, she was afraid of her friend. She saw the Elder gesturing the the drawer containing the armor, and in that moment she finally understood what scared her friend, what was scaring her the most. The Elder growled back at her friend, dangerously low, the hunter standing at the doorway impassively. Tentatively, she cleared her throat, and tried to ignore the roar the Elder spat at her.

"Babydoll? You remember I said you can never lose your humanity?" Her friend could only nod, glaring still at the Elder. "The one who trained you doesn't believe you can either." That got her attention.

"You haven't even met it."

"I don't need to babydoll. Why did it train you? What does it want?" Her friend cocked her head to one side, uncannily mimicking the Yautja gesture.

"It wants a challenging hunt."

"No babydoll. It wants to hunt a _human_ that's challenging. If you could lose your humanity, you wouldn't be that challenge." Her friend blinked, trying to sort through her friend's tortuous logic. She stood there, with her mouth open as she tried to come up with a counter, but she couldn't. The Elder stood waiting. It disagreed with the human's logic, but it wasn't inclined to argue, if it would help get this foolish human over a trivial matter of semantics. After a minute, her friend sighed, before straightening up. She crossed her hands across her chest, and bowed her head.

"Yes Elder."

-

* * *

-

_The King's stinking son fired me, and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? We're closed! _

They were in the apartment living room, Marisa on the couch, the two aliens standing at one end. She'd turned the TV to a movie channel, and she could hear them speaking to each other as they tried to understand the images and sounds coming out of the box. All three of them heard the bedroom door open at the same time, and turned.

For a moment she stood there in the doorway awkwardly, then took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back, and walked into the room, still limping slightly from the injury to her leg, but with her head high. Segmented shoulder and upper arm plates of gray metal armour gave her a hunched look, like football pads, connecting to a chestplate that covered down to the bottom of her sternum and curved around her sides to connect to her backpiece. The bare skin of her stomach was exposed, although covered in a black mesh bodysuit, and still showed the blue tint of the alien paste, but the sore redness around it was almost gone.

Around her waist, more of the gray metal studded a black belt from the hide of some unknown alien species, but the only thing hanging from it was her black cloth trophy pouch. The belt cinched in, holding tight more of the material that wrapped around her waist, and down between her legs. Her thighs and calves were shielded by more armor, the knees and ankles protected by padding of the same alien hide, ending with boots of black hide and gray metal. Long white bone hilts protruded from long sheaths on the outside of each calf, and on the front of her right thigh was mounted a black rectangular block, a twin to the computers mounted on the left wrist of the hunter and Elder.

On _both_ of her forearms, twin serrated blades glinted evilly in the light, quiescent in their housing, but she clenched her fists, and the deadly signature tools of a Yautja sprang forwards. She twisted her wrists, and the blades on both arms pivoted on unseen articulation, reversing themselves to rest underneath her forearms, and she grinned, showing teeth. A flick of her wrists again, and the blades returned to the front, then she retracted them back to their homes.

Marisa smiled, and walked around one end of the couch to stand before her friend. She passed the mask she held in her hands over, then impulsively kissed her friend on the nose.

"Next time we do a barbecue, you are _so_ going to be the one cutting the meat, babydoll." Her friend smiled.

"It's a deal. Just promise me that there won't be any hard meat on the menu, hon." Marisa laughed, stepping back as her friend raised the mask to her face and connected it to her armor. As the world switched colors, she could read the words of the hunter and the Elder.

"... _amedha_ have the same desire to show off when they get their new armor?"

"It seems young bloods are universal. Well human, if you're ready, we have _kainde amedha_ to hunt." She nodded, cocooned within her armor, and activated her cloak as the other two hunters activated their own. With a glance to Marisa, she followed them out onto the balcony, and into the night.

Hunting.

_Have fun storming the castle!  
Think it'll work?  
It'll take a miracle. _


	10. Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus

**Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus**

It was a cold night, but she hardly noticed it, her armor's sensors adjusting the heating elements built into the net-like undergarment she wore to keep her comfortable. She was trying to keep up with the two Yautja, but they still needed to stop every few miles for her to catch up. She had thought she was fit, but by comparison to alien physique, she was reminded she was still _pyode amedha_.

After a while, the trio stopped, and she crouched down on the parapet of the building whilst the Elder gave instructions to the hunter.

"Return to the ship and collect those items she is still missing from the stores. Meet us at the nest the hosts were found in." The hunter nodded once, then began examining her armor, she guessed to determine what things she needed. It looked to the Elder.

"Should I bring her a -------- as well Elder?" She blinked, it seemed the translator wasn't 100. The Elder nodded to the hunter, who looked at her curiously before shaking its head. She watched through her mask as the cloaked hunter bounded off into the distance, until the Elder caught her attention.

"The equipment will be only while you hunt with us, human." She acknowledged it, inclining her head.

"Good. I earned what I have. It makes it worth more to me." It trilled a laugh, then motioned for her to descend to ground level with it. They'd tried to make most of the trip on the rooftops, but the gaps between buildings had sometimes been just too great for her to jump. They had been moving purposefully towards the border between the business and industrial districts.

She cringed as they reached the sidewalk and a car went barreling past. The Elder laughed again.

"When there is light on you, move slowly, or stay still. The cloak has time to adjust the field so that the --------- isn't as visible." She nodded, but she was still nervous. Here she was, decked out in Yautja armor, a Yautja Elder beside her, jogging down a city sidewalk. The incongruity of the situation played with nerves already on edge.

She didn't reply, but instead concentrated on keeping up with the Elder and trying to get used to seeing the world in the different vision modes the mask gave her. She'd practiced with the mask many times, but her fears regarding wearing the entire armor had meant she hadn't experienced its abilities when used as part of the armor as a whole. The cool fresh air the mask blew across her face and into her lungs was a comfortable feeling, and went a long way to countering the stench of the city the enhancements the mask gave to her sense of smell brought to her.

As they jogged along easily, it kept asking her questions, reminding her every now and again that she only need whisper and it would hear it. Its decision to include this _pyode amedha_ in the hunt was based on practicality – even thought she was prey, she had hunted _kainde amedha_, something three of its available hunters had not yet done. It would be unwise to ignore a possible resource in hunting a queen, regardless of its species, but equally unwise not to determine the level of training this human had received.

She was breathing steadily, the Elder had set a pace she could match without drastic difficulty, but her mind was in turmoil. The Elder was interrogating her thoroughly, testing her knowledge of the hunt far harsher than it had ever been tested before. She burned with shame at how many questions she hadn't been able to answer, or gave an answer she thought sounded so lame. The Elder that had trained her had infuriated her with the constant '_not yet_', but being under the microscope of this Elder, she was beginning to think it might have a good point. If this Elder was testing her fitness to be worthy, she was sure she was coming up short.

During a break in the questioning, she asked a question of her own.

"Where are we going Elder?" The Elder looked at her, and for a moment she wondered if she was supposed to ask such a question. After a minute, the reply scrolled across the bottom of her vision.

"I wish your opinions. The _kainde amedha_ are anomalous, and we do not know why. We will examine the hosts, perhaps you will be able to see something that we are unable to recognize as being important." She nodded, the reasoning made perfect sense, then shuddered when it came to her that it was taking her to see the bodies of humans that had died in hard meat childbirth. Despite the blood she had shed herself over the years, the thought of what she would see was disturbing.

The closer they came to the line that separated the business and industrial areas, she finally realized that they were entering the area she had always considered 'her' hunting grounds. She looked around curiously, wondering why the hosts would be found around here, when she spotted movement in the darkened doorway of a building. She switched vision modes, and outlined in green she saw two shapes bending over a third, their fists pounding it as it raised its arms in a futile attempt to protect itself. She was unaware of the primal growl that rose unbidden in her throat, but as she made to step across the road towards the doorway, the Elder's hand was on her arm.

"We do not have time to be diverted with hunting, young blood." She was tempted to ignore the implicit rebuke in the Elder's caution, but understood. With a visible effort, she let go of the anger that had been building up in her, and looked across to the doorway. The human on the ground was putting up no defense now, but the hail of fists, joined by kicks, continued to rain down on it. She switched vision modes, amplifying the light so she could get a close look at the faces of the two assailants, and she filed them away for later, before turning and nodding to the Elder. They turned away and started running once more, but her mask's sensors made sure that she could hear the sounds of bones breaking behind them even after they were beyond being able to see.

-

* * *

-

"This is not right!" It had hoped to have reached the storeroom and be gone again by now, but it had been intercepted by one of the unblooded on the way out.

"She is _pyode amedha_, the only part she should be playing in a hunt is as prey!" It sighed to itself.

Under normal circumstances, it might have agreed with the impulsive unblooded hunter – inviting a _pyode amedha_ to participate in a hunt would be unthinkable. But these weren't normal circumstances. The _kainde amedha_ trial was out of hand, three hunters were dead, a _kainde amedha_ queen was on the loose ... and this human was not a normal human, not if an Elder had decided that she might provide it with a challenge.

"I am sure that the Elder will allow you to make a challenge against the decision", it retorted mildly, "but I have my doubts that you will succeed."

That wasn't even taking into account that she _had_ been trained. It didn't recognize the mark the human had sketched out on her mask, but as they had waited for the human to equip herself, the Elder had let slip that the human had shown it the mark also, and that it had recognized it. Although it didn't say whose mark it was, it had obviously been one of the reasons for the Elder's decision.

It watched the unblooded hunter warily as the other hunters on the ship gathered around, attracted by the sound of the argument. It knew that the other experienced hunters would abide by the Elder's decision, especially when they understood the reasoning behind it, but the remaining unblooded and the young bloods were not yet used to the idea that hunts sometimes required improvisation.

"Are you still angered by this human female's words?"

The hunter cocked its head to one side for a moment, before answering forcefully.

"Yes! Even if she hunts, she is still only _pyode amedha_, our prey. She may be able to hunt _kainde amedha_, or other humans, but they are not Yautja. What would she know of honor, or the hunt, as we do?" The hunter nodded in agreement.

"Your words are true, she is still prey, and yet she obviously does know of honor, and the hunt. There is always the chance she learned of these things in hunting Yautja." The impulsive unblooded looked at the hunter aghast, mandibles spread wide. A clicking purr filled the chamber as the more experienced hunters laughed at the its reaction. "Why not? She has been trained by an Elder to hunt, to provide it with a worthy challenge. Perhaps she has already practiced against Yautja. You do not believe a human can defeat a Yautja, despite knowing that hunting expeditions to this world have failed to return in the past?"

"One failed to return. And the only other incident a Yautja fell to a human, the human used the hunter's own weapons. It was luck, and luck alone! Luck does not make a hunter."

The hunter let out a roar, reached out and backhanded the impulsive Yautja, throwing it across the chamber.

"Why were you ever considered ready to take the trial? Luck may not make a hunter, but it is a dead hunter that ignores it." The hunter snorted at the fallen unblooded, lying sprawled with one hand raised to the splash of green blood from the cut where the hunter's hand had hit its face.

"Worse is a hunter who questions the decisions of their Elder during a hunt. Especially one who is not even blooded." It turned its back on the furious hunter and stalked out of the ship.

-

* * *

-

She crouched down, wishing there was a way to disable the mask's amplifying the smells around her. The stench of decay was cloying, filling her nose until her eyes watered. She wasn't too certain how she felt about the amplified vision modes, as she forced herself to examine the ruins of what had once been a human being that lay before her in the darkness either.

The hole in its chest was obvious, the signature of a _kainde amedha_ being born. Trails and puddles of viscous slime surrounded and coated this, and the many other bodies in the room, and she knew the scene was repeated throughout the building. Tentatively, she rolled the body over slightly, she wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she'd seen enough episodes of CSI: on TV to know that she should look in the most unlikely of places. She noted the number of used needles underneath the corpse, and rocked back to sit on her heels, her head cocked to one side as she considered.

She switched vision modes, and the scene in front of her changed. A large quantity of metal objects came sharply into focus, strewn around the room buried under caked layers of dust, grime, and _kainde amedha_ slime.

"The hosts came here after implantation?" The Elder nodded, standing in the doorway watching the human as she stood and stepped towards another body. They had both turned off the cloaking devices once they'd been sure the building was empty, of life at least, conserving power.

"We tracked their transport to nearby, and discovered them here after the _kainde amedha_ had emerged." She bent down and gingerly pulled a used syringe from the muck, holding it up so the Elder could see.

"Do you recall if there were objects like these where they were implanted?" The Elder shook its head negatively. They hadn't been looking for such things, they were looking for hosts.

She crouched down again and looked over the room, then sighed.

"Great. We're dealing with alien crack babies?" The Elder looked at her, not understanding.

"The hosts. They were addicts, you can see the marks on their arms, and this looks like it's a crack house, a place for addicts to get and use drugs." She stood and started pacing, talking half to herself as she worked things out in her head. "If the hosts came here after implantation, it would have been to obtain drugs. The _kainde amedha_ take on characteristics of the hosts they emerge from, my guess is that somehow they were affected by those drugs."

As she was speaking, the warrior that had been sent back to the ship entered and deactivated its cloak, a net sack over its shoulder. It placed the sack down beside the Elder then stood patiently, listening as she continued.

"It would explain a lot of things. The face huggers, the first stage things?" The Elder nodded. "The two I saw were being carried, and they were slow. And the _kainde amedha_ that got covered in whatever was in that bag stopped and looked like it was stoned ... erm ... a euphoric state." She paused.

"The _kainde amedha_ that I saw that first night, that killed the three hunters. I was just returning from watching a place I was going to hunt later this week. And the ones last night were at another one." The hunter spoke up.

"Perhaps there is a connection?" She nodded, walking over to where the Elder and hunter stood, and the three of them crouched in a circle.

"Maybe the _kainde amedha_ inherited the host's addiction to the drugs, or at least are attracted to the places the drugs are." The Elder considered this, eying her curiously.

"And these places are all ones where you hunt?" She looked up quickly before nodding. They were quiet for a moment before the Elder spoke again, quietly.

"The human female said you hunt 'bad guys'?" She looked at the Elder, remembering that it had been there to see her fear and Marisa's acceptance of her friend's acts.

"Yes Elder. It's a human phrase, she meant members of criminal organizations who prey on the weak, helpless, defenseless." The two Yautja growled angrily, the hunter slamming a fist into the ground.

"Humans permit this?" it asked, outrage obvious in it's tone as the words appeared. She sighed.

"They do. It's at the stage where the criminals are given more rights than their victims." The hunter snorted in disgust.

"And humans wonder why we consider them a prey species!" The Elder raised its hand, and the hunter fell respectfully silent.

"Why did you choose human bad bloods to hunt?" She cocked her head to the Elder curiously, not understanding the term. It saw her confusion and explained.

"It is the Yautja name for those who act without honor, disgrace themselves. They are outcast, despised. Hunted." She nodded soberly.

"Sounds about right. I chose them because they are dishonorable. They chose to live lives of violence, causing pain, harming innocents. That made them fair game, the way prey carrying a weapon makes it fair game for Yautja." The two hunters nodded, agreeing with the logic. The Elder reached into the sack the hunter had brought, and began laying out the contents in the center of the circle they had made. Once the sack was empty, the Elder gestured to the items it had withdrawn.

"Take what you need. Remember, you only have it until the hunt is completed." She nodded and immediately picked up the retracted shaft of a spear. Making sure she wasn't going to hit either of the hunters, she squeezed the center of the shaft to extend it, and noted subtle differences between this spear and the one she had been using. Instead of being cylindrical, the extended shaft had three grooves running down it, into the center section. She looked to the Elder curiously, but it was the hunter who explained.

"The equipment I selected for you was chosen for hunting _kainde amedha_. Those grooves will allow the blood to flow down the shaft, and make it less likely to reach your hands." She nodded.

"That was how I lost my own, I had to let go else the blood would have reached me."

"Twist the center in both hands." the hunter instructed her. She did so, and was startled when part of the raised section of each groove on either end, from the center section outwards, about eight inches in length, clicked out to protrude at an angle. The hunter let out a short bark of laughter at her reaction, and she smiled as she twisted the center again so the six spikes rested back against the main shaft, then squeezed it so it would retract down. As she clipped the spear shaft to the side of her thigh, she wondered briefly at how well the Yautja seemed to be handling her.

As strange as it was for her to be crouching in the middle of a room full of corpses outfitting herself with alien hardware, it had to be just as strange if not more for two aliens to be handing something they usually considered to be nothing more than prey the means to defend itself. As she was moving the items on the ground around, she caught sight of two objects that made her heart stop for a second. She looked to the Elder, but it just stared back at her, without comment.

With trembling hands she lifted the first up, turning it over in her hands. They were trembling so hard she almost dropped it, and with a nervous laugh the hunter gently took it from her, then stood to move around behind her. She felt pressure on her shoulder, then the click as the hunter latched it into place. Her view through the mask suddenly flashed and an entire new set of symbols came up in front of her eyes. She moved her eyes right, and could feel the soft whine vibration as the servos moved, and as she looked at the knob on the rotted door to the room, three angled red lines moved across her sight, flashing as they formed a perfect triangle superimposed on top of the knob in her view.

She blinked, and looked upwards to the correct icon on her display, and as the targeting bars vanished she could feel the weight on her shoulder shift backwards and onto the backpiece of her armour. The hunter moved back and crouched down, as she stared at the Elder. It had just allowed her to mount high energy plasma weaponry on her armor! More, it hadn't moved as she'd tested the tracking and target lock system on the door. She'd tried the plasma weapon out before, earlier in her training, to get used to the feel of it and how to use it, but that had been an underpowered training unit, she'd been told. The status display inside her mask told her that this was most certainly a fully functional, fully charged, fully devastating one.

Not trusting herself to say anything just yet, she slowly reached down and picked up the second object that had caused her reaction. It was a twin to the ones both the hunters wore attached to their left forearms, their computers. She thought back to the other night, when she had speared the fallen hunter's arm, shorting out the computer to disable the self-destruct charge each Yautja computer contained.

"_Oh shit. This is really serious now"_, she thought to herself. She looked down to her right thigh at the raised square panel mounted on the front of her leg amour, and depressed the hidden catch there. The protective shield flipped open, revealing a display similar to the one on the front of the computer she held. She pressed the catch again, and the display came loose, revealing a recessed spot. She gingerly placed the Yautja computer panel inside, then pressed the display plate over top of it. As it clicked into place, the display lit up, it had been designed by her trainer to allow her to control the Yautja version, sitting on top and translating the messages and commands.

Just her trainer hadn't given her one with a bomb inside it capable of leveling ten city blocks.

She didn't know what to say. With just those two items alone, the Elder had honored her, and shown a level of trust in a _pyode amedha_ she didn't think possible. She knew that if she said anything about being unworthy, that would be considered an insult, a criticism – if it considered her unworthy, it wouldn't have let her have the equipment to begin with. She felt light headed, ten feet tall and yet insignificantly small, and her doubts from earlier tried to sneak into her consciousness again. But this time they were tinged with fear. The Elder had decided to trust her. What if she let it down?

Again as if reading her mind, the Elder reached out one claw and placed it on her shoulder, and after a glance at the Elder, the hunter raised a claw and placed it on her other shoulder. The Elder waited a moment, trying to find the right words.

"I know who is training you." She gasped, but it continued on, paying her no heed. "I should have realized it when I saw the device that was used to preserve your life, but it wasn't until you showed me the mark that I knew. We share the same trainer, young blood, and I know that you would not have been given your amour had you not earned it." She nodded slowly as it went on. "Should you win when the time comes you are ready to be hunted, I hope that I will have the opportunity to hunt you myself." The hunter gave a growl of agreement, and she laughed.

"_When_ that time comes, Elder, I swear to provide you with worthy prey." Both Yautja let out howls of laughter, before removing their claws. She looked over the rest of the equipment on the floor, many of the small items remaining were unknown to her. The hunter noticed her hesitancy.

"You have not trained with any of these things?" She shook her head, and pointed several star shaped objects.

"Those I have created an human analog of, but mine don't return after being thrown." She blushed under her mask. "I sort of have a problem with the return part. I ... erm ... kind of kept ducking instead of trying to catch them." Both Yautja stared at her, the hunter's body shaking as it tried to hold back laughter. The Elder looked at the hunter, then back to her, picking up four of the items under discussion and handing them to her.

"I suggest you learn how to catch quickly then, for in this hunt, there will be Yautja behind you." She stared at the Elder for a moment, but as it began to growl quietly behind its mask she quickly took them from its claw and allowed the clips on her amour to take hold, securing them.

"Yes, Elder" she offered, meekly.

"I could get used to this", the elder muttered. Both she and the hunter looked at it in surprise. "A young blood that does what it's told and doesn't argue." They laughed.

She looked at the rest of the equipment, but none of it seemed needful. Eventually, the Elder started placing the remainder back into the sack, before closing it off and handing it back to the hunter. The three stood, and she looked around the room at the dead one last time, then turned to see the Elder already moving out of the room, but the hunter still standing close by, watching her.

"Why do you have two sets of blades?"

"Before I earned the wrist blades, I used two long blades, and developed techniques that concentrate on those, that I use most. The Elder who is teaching me decided that I should keep with the style I was most comfortable with, and so designed these blades, adding extra capabilities so they could be used as the blades I hand carry are." It nodded, and they both started through the doorway after the Elder.

"What's a young blood anyway?" The hunter let out a trill of laughter.

"A young blood is a Yautja who has been blooded, but has a limited amount of experience yet." The hunter looked at her as they walked down the hallway. "The Elder is trying to find a way to refer to you that recognizes you are more than a usual _pyode amedha_, at least as long as this hunt continues. It's difficult to come to terms with the fact that you hunt, and have hunted _kainde amedha_. That alone is causing problems with the unblooded." It stopped for a second, and she turned to it.

"You realize that you will always be considered prey, even if honored prey? What that means?"

"Yes. That was explained a long time ago. What you're really asking me is, do I understand that once this hunt is over, you're likely to come hunt me, and the answer is yes, I do." It nodded.

"Did you mean it when you said you swore to be worthy prey?", it asked almost hesitantly. She looked at it, then nodded.

"The real question could be, are Yautja worthy to hunt me?" It stared at her, then shook its head. It activated its cloak, and she followed suit, both forms fading into the darkness.

"Young bloods!" it muttered darkly, striding past her.


	11. Disce quasi semper victurus vive

**Disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus**

"Show me where you hunt", the Elder had said once they'd left the building the hosts had died in, so she did - both where she had hunted, and the places she'd watched and planned to hunt in later. Some of the buildings she'd hunted in a long time ago were back in use, but the ones from more recent hunts were still deserted. Security was tight in the places in use, and they didn't bother entering those – this was a scouting mission, there was no point in alerting the prey.

The more time she spent around the two Yautja, the easier she found her mind slipping into the headspace of a hunter. She found herself considering most everything as being prey, but she knew it still wasn't in the way she had feared. Marisa's faith in her maintaining her sense of humanity seemed to be justified so far.

They were ostensibly searching for any trace of _kainde amedha_ in the buildings they were able to enter, trying to see if there really was a connection between the hard meat and the drug stashes. They'd found traces of _kainde amedha_ in two of the abandoned sites, mostly the viscous slime the hard meat seemed to leave everywhere, but no sign of the aliens themselves. She began to doubt her theory as they came up with little result again and again.

At the same time, the Elder required her to explain her hunting of each place they visited, even going so far as to make her give the two Yautja a walk-through of her actions in the still-abandoned locations. She'd been completely open about her methods, even going so far as to mention the mistakes she had made, and how she had corrected them. She knew that she was still "on probation" in a sense with the Elder – yes, it had seen her fight two _kainde amedha_ that first night, but it was placing a lot of trust in a _pyode amedha_ and wanted to be confident in her abilities.

It was only when the both the Elder and the hunter started offering critiques of her methods, suggesting ways she could have done some things more effectively, that she realized that they were in a sense also training her, by sharing their own considerable experience and skills with her freely.

For the two Yautja, learning about how this human had been trained and how she hunted was giving them a new-found, if still grudging, respect for her. At times, both of them could easily forget that this was a _pyode amedha_ they were traveling with. She had a quiet assurance about her that belied both her species and her age, and her willingness to admit her errors and listen to their comments was so unlike any young blood that they were beginning to enjoy her presence.

The more the hunter watched this human, the more it understood the Elder's wisdom in inviting her to hunt the _kainde amedha_ with them. She would be a good addition to the hunting party, and it was beginning to see that hunting this human could be a worthwhile challenge indeed. Wryly, it was reasonably sure at this stage that this 'mere' human, _prey_, would easily acquit herself better in the coming hunt than that impulsive unblooded Yautja it had argued with on the ship.

As daylight began to break, the Elder took note of her condition. She had become quieter, and exhaustion was beginning to set in. It remembered that she was still recovering from her injuries, her limp had returned and was more pronounced as time went on. As they finished examining the eighth building of the night, the Elder crouched down, and as the human and the hunter joined it, the Elder looked at her.

"We shall stop now. You're tired and need more time to rest. Go back to your nest, sleep. Be prepared to hunt again at dark." She was tempted to argue but knew that the Elder was right. For the past hour her legs had felt like jelly, and her calf felt like the _kainde amedha_ was sticking its claws into it all over again. The Elder looked to the hunter then.

"Escort her to her nest, then return to the ship. Make sure her equipment is safeguarded." The hunter growled in assent, but she looked to the Elder sharply. "Your storage is inadequate, young blood. It would be easy for someone to compromise it." It tapped at the armor shield covering her computer. "Some things should not be allowed to others." She nodded in understanding. Standing again, they left the building and split up, the Elder returning directly to the ship, while she and the hunter made their way to her apartment.

-

She was so tired by the end of the journey that she had to stop twice on the fire escape to catch her breath, the hunter waiting impatiently for her. The early morning bustle of commuters and the beginning of rush hour were going to test its stealth skills on its way back to the ship, it wasn't happy with the delays.

As they entered through the balcony doors and turned off their cloaks, they were greeted by the sight of Marisa curled up on the couch, a mug of coffee in her hand, watching TV. She startled as they both wavered into sight, spilling the coffee a little, before grinning at her friend and standing.

"Coffee will be five minutes babydoll." Marisa stared at the hunter for a second. "Think it wants some too?" She stared in bemusement at her friend, then shook her head.

"I don't think it would appreciate it, hon. What are you _doing_ here? I thought you'd have gone home by now!" Marisa grinned again, heading towards the kitchen area to hit the button on the coffee machine. She pulled down an empty mug from a cupboard, then stood waiting by the machine, looking at them both over the counter.

"I figured you'd need some coffee when you came home, babydoll. And there was nothing worth watching on TV, so ..." Marisa shrugged.

"If I am going to return to the ship in time to get any sleep before the hunt tonight, we should fix your equipment storage now", the hunter growled to her.

"Give me a few minutes hon, I need to get changed into something less ... metal." As she led the hunter to the bedroom, Marisa laughed from behind them.

"Don't be too noisy!" She groaned, turning and sticking her tongue out at Marisa before remembering her friend couldn't see it. So much the better!

She opened the hidden closet for the hunter, and while she removed the weapons from her armor it examined the inside, and the drawer her armor was usually kept in. It reached into the sack it had brought from the ship and held up a box, about the size of a book.

"Say something." She looked at it.

"What would you like me to say?" It nodded before turning and pressing the box against the back wall of the closet. Her mask brought an almost inaudible beep to her ears, then a strange crunch noise. The hunter removed its claw, but the box stayed affixed to the wall. It turned back to her, stepping to one side.

"Remove your mask, then look at the device. It will shine a light in your eyes. Do not blink or look away until the light goes out." She nodded, reaching up to the side of her mask to disconnect it from the rest of her armor. As she pulled the mask away, breaking the pressure seal, the box emitted a beam of blue light right into her eyes. It felt like someone was shoving a spike through her eyes into her head, and she tried not to squint. After a few seconds, the light went out and she blinked away tears. The hunter growled and clicked something, and she quickly pressed her mask against her face again.

"The device is normally used to protect the ship of a solo hunter. If the door is opened, but it does not hear you speak, or it is not looked at to provide an optical scan, it will detonate." It said that so calmly it took her a few moments for the words to register.

"_Detonate?_ How big a detonation?"

"It is designed to destroy a ship and leave no evidence. Approximately seven times the yield of the destruct device on your armor." As it was explaining the device, it was removing the rest of the objects from the sack that she had rejected earlier, placing them on the back wall of the closet.

"Why are you leaving those?" The hunter glanced across at the weapons she had removed and placed on the bed.

"A hunter should not specialize, it leads to predictability, and predictability is a sure way to fail when hunting _pyode amedha_. Not all weapons are suitable for all hunts. This gives you more choice in how you hunt", it explained patiently. She sat down on the bed and watched it finish placing everything in the closet, both the items it had brought from the ship as well as the weapons she had been carrying, before it turned to face her.

"Why did you say when hunting _pyode amedha_? I thought we were hunting hard meat?", she asked softly, looking at her newly enlarged arsenal. She had to admit, even the way it had arranged everything against the wall and the back of the door looked ... decorative, on display. She wasn't sure if it constituted a trophy vault, but it certainly was different from her own haphazard "if it fits, it goes there" method. It crouched down in front of her and looked directly into her eyes, hidden though they were behind her mask.

"Do you intend to stop hunting human bad bloods?" She looked across to the doorway, seeing for the first time that Marisa was stood there watching them.

"No", she replied, surprise evident in her voice. She hadn't even thought about 'after' the hunt. It growled with pleasure at her response.

"Then you need to learn how to hunt them better. Your skills are advanced, for a human, but still raw by the standards of Yautja." She nodded. The hunter reached up with a clawed hand and held her chin.

"The Elder has decided you are part of this hunt. That means you are held to the same standards as any other Yautja, for the moment. Be honored by that decision, but also be careful, young blood. You have gone some way to proving yourself capable tonight in my eyes, and the other blooded will respect my view and give you the opportunity to prove yourself to them. But there are those who disagree with the decision of the Elder." She tried to nod, but the hunter's grip held her head firmly.

"Why are you telling me this, hunter?"

"I am ----------, the Second for this hunt. It falls on me to ensure the hunters are prepared." She tried to figure out what the word was that didn't translate, but gave up, instead growling an assent. The hunter, purred in delight, she had answered almost in the Yautja language. "You hunt with us, therefore you are my responsibility as the others are." It grasped her chin tighter for a second. "Unless you wish to challenge me, of course." She snorted, and the hunter growled a laugh.

"Rest now young blood. Conserve your energy, we hunt again tonight." The Second released her chin, and she nodded. It stood, and Marisa had to step out of the way quickly as it left through the doorway. Without another word, it cloaked and was gone. Marisa turned to her friend, who was wearily releasing the catches on her armor.

"Ready for coffee now?"

-

* * *

-

"Miss McCullough?" She turned at the voice, but didn't recognize the speaker.

"Yes?"

"My employer would like to speak with you regarding a matter of mutual interest." The man was obsequious to the point of fawning. She was used to it, she had her share of people that were in awe of her being a TV reporter, but something about this 'fan' was setting alarm bells off in her mind already. She made to move to her car, but the man stepped closer.

"I'm sure your employer knows how to contact the network", she snapped, beginning to get irritated and a little scared.

"He does, yes. However he would like to speak with you directly, regarding a certain incident the night before last, involving a fire?" She started in surprise, and looked closer at the man. She could see the outlines of tattoos showing below the cuffs and above the neckline of the dark blue polo-necked sweater he wore, and irritation became totally replaced by fear. Although the man was in his late thirties, balding, and obviously a westerner, she was certain he was Yakuza, one of the three big organized crime groups that controlled the city.

"And your employer would be ...?", she left the question hanging.

"Offering you breakfast and a conversation" the man replied, deliberately misunderstanding the question. "He was very specific in his instruction to assure you that he places great store in your safety should you accept his offer."

She knew that could mean a lot of things. The Yakuza of the city were still operating under the 'old' traditions, and this guy's assurances _could_ be taken as a safe conduct, a guarantee that this was simply a meeting. On the other hand, the assurance could also be also a threat that this man's 'employer' would place no value at all in her safety if she _didn't_ accept.

The man stood there, smiling as she went over the options in her head. With a resigned sigh, she looked at him.

"Fine, are we taking your car or ..." She stopped as the man gestured politely towards a large black sedan parked at the curb. She shrugged, and as he held the back door open for her, she slid onto the leather rear seat. Despite her expectations, the man didn't follow her onto the back seat, instead getting into the car on the passenger side, the driver waiting patiently for the doors to be closed before gliding smoothly out into traffic.

"So where are we going for breakfast?" she asked, after a long silence. The man in the passenger seat turned to her and smiled again. That was really beginning to make her nervous.

"A small restaurant my employer owns, Miss McCullough. It is very close by. But I must first ask you to hand me your purse and jacket, and to promise you have no recording devices on your person." She was about to argue with him, as he continued. "I'm sure you understand my employer is a very private man, and would feel more able to speak candidly with you if there was no chance of you recording his voice, perhaps for later use."

In other words, whoever she was going to meet was probably about to threaten her. In the nicest possible way, she was sure. Without a word she handed over her purse and jacket, and at the man's request (order?) leaned forward in her seat so he could expertly and professionally pat her down. Once satisfied she wasn't carrying anything she shouldn't, he made a motion to the driver, and a few minutes later they pulled up outside a small Japanese restaurant, just off the main part of downtown.

The man opened her door and walked her into the restaurant, leading her past mostly empty tables until they reached one towards the back of the restaurant, currently only one person sat there. Standing with a smile, he sketched a bow to her, and she nodded curtly. She wasn't interested in his manners. Unperturbed, he stretched out an arm to indicate the seat across the table from him.

"Good morning, Miss McCullough, thank you for joining me for breakfast. Please, sit." The man who had brought her here had already withdrawn the chair from under the table, and she did as bidden. With a look to the seated Japanese, the man bowed and left silently. Nothing more was said between the two of them until they had ordered breakfast, she had no idea what half the menu was but was happy to see the restaurant also served western food, so she ordered an omelette. Witht hat out of the way, they looked at each other for several minutes, before he spoke.

"I believe that we may have something in common, Miss McCullough."

"Really? And what might that be, Mister ...?" He smiled tolerantly at her.

"We both seem to be having difficulties with monsters." Her jaw dropped.

"I ... I think that you must be mistaken. I have no idea about monsters", she stuttered, trying to regain her composure. "I thought that was something they only had in Japan", but the cheap barb didn't buy her any breathing space, or even seem to be noticed.

"I'm not sure, since I was born here, but that's not important, Miss McCullough." He picked up a knife from the table and started twirling it through his fingers. "I do know that you have encountered the same creature that has been causing my business ... enterprises, difficulties. I thought merely that we might share some information on the recent events in the city, and perhaps come up with some plan to ... deal with the problem?" Her eyes narrowed.

"Share what sort of information?"

"Information you might be able to use in your reporting, on the murders, perhaps? In exchange for your information on the creature that tried to kill you." She mulled it over, and he gave her time to do so. This wasn't something Wen could obtain through his more direct methods, the woman obviously had taste, and style, and was greatly offended by the attack upon her person. Ito was a master of finessing his 'marks', the victims of his scams, and he knew that he had her the moment he dangled the bait of information about the other attacks in front of her.

Their food arrived, but whilst he set about his daintily, she left her untouched, her mind thinking all the permutations and possibilities. This was obviously someone very high up in the Yakuza, to be offering such a deal, and the thoughts of the information she could get had visions of Pulitzers and much much more dancing behind her eyes. The question was, how could she get the information without giving away her ace about the attack the other night, the woman in black? However he had found out that she had been there and the ... thing ... had attacked her, chances were that he'd gotten a description of that, but had he heard anything about the other things, the black insect aliens? Maybe she could hold that back as well.

"They was big", she said, suddenly. He leaned forwards, listening intently, as she described it. "Eight, maybe nine feet tall, and bulky. Whatever they were, they were wearing some weird armor, like those knights in the movies."

"You say they. There was more than one creature?" She nodded.

"Two of them. We were watching through the drug flap in the wall. We got there after the gunfire started, almost ended up running over a pair of junkies that ran across the road. We looked in, and there was this thing standing there over the bodies in the room." She didn't elaborate that the bodies were not just of the dealers, but also of the the black aliens, and the woman in black. He nodded as she continued.

"It must have seen us, it roared and came barreling towards the window. I figured it was going to try to jump through the window, but it didn't bother, it just hit the wall and it collapsed, making one big monster sized hole. We were knocked over by bricks, and it tried to spear me." She didn't see any harm in playing up her own role in this. "It missed but hit the camera, I guess the spear it was using was electrified or something because it melted the camera electronics down and ruined the recording."

He tried not to let his frustration at that tidbit of information show. If the woman had only managed to save the recording ... ! Impassively, he motioned to her to continue, taking a sip of water as he did so. She matched his move, gulping down several mouthfuls before going on.

"We picked ourselves up, and looked inside the room, but nothing was alive as far as we could tell. So we went inside, and out of nowhere another one of the monsters appeared and roared right at us. We figured we were next to end up as sushi", she paused and blushed, considering her surroundings, "so we ran back out to the van. Next thing we know, there's an explosion, and red fireballs going off inside the room, and it came running out of the hole the other one made, and vanished."

"Did you see what direction it left in?" She shook her head vehemently.

"You don't get it, I mean it _vanished_, right in front of us. Disappeared into thin air!" She took a halting breath, realizing she was beginning to sound hysterical. With a visible effort she calmed herself down. "I'm sorry, I've never come that close to dying before." He nodded with concern, all the time trying to process the new information.

"You were very brave, Miss McCullough, both then and now. I'm sure that it must have been a difficult few minutes for you." He reached into a pocket inside his sports jacket and withdrew an envelope. She looked at the envelope, then at him. "Oh, please, be assured it is nothing as crass as a bribe. This is simply some information that I had prepared for you, should you be willing to share what you knew." She nodded, picking up the envelope. Without her purse she had nowhere to ... The man from earlier appeared by her side, her purse and coat in hand. She smiled up at him instinctively as she opened her purse to put the envelope away, but it froze on her lips as she looked into his eyes. Emotionless.

"My associate here will return you to your apartment, Miss McCullough. I am sure we will meet again, but if you should find out more about our mutual interest, please don't hesitate to give me a telephone call." He handed her a business card that had a phone number only printed on it, and she was walking towards the restaurant entrance before she bemusedly realized that the "interview" was over. She turned quickly, but of the Japanese man there was no sign, the table they had sat around empty and cleaned already. She allowed the westerner to guide her out the door and into the waiting car, replaying the conversation over in her mind to see if she had let slip anything she shouldn't have. Satisfied she'd not said anything untoward, she relaxed back into the car seat as it rolled smoothly back into the morning rush.

Both parties believed they came away the stronger from this meeting, but in reality they'd only shown each other a fraction of the information they thought they could offer, both of them playing their game, both trying to gain the upper hand. Practically, it had resulted in a draw, this time.

She was unaware that she would still be just a pawn in the game, however. The information Ito planned on giving her would be very damaging, but only to his associates. He was sure that the Yakuza would both be relatively unscathed at the end of this, as well as the sole dominating criminal organization in the city. And that position would likely be consolidated by having this reporter both in his debt and under his thumb.

-

* * *

-

She was tired already. It was taking longer than her instincts told her it should to produce each one, and the number of them that were viable was much smaller than was normal. She knew that she needed to work quickly to build up their numbers, they were losing almost as many as were born. She seethed as she thought of those creatures that had deprived her of her siblings and children. She wanted to hurt them, to destroy them.

But to do that she knew she needed to find more hosts, better ones than they had found to date, to allow the hive to grow stronger. She would need to widen the area they took hosts from, even though the hive was still small and weak - a risk but one she had little choice but to take. Detection was less of an issue, if they could find many hosts and grow quickly.

She sent the command to her children.

_Find more hosts_

-

* * *

-

It wasn't in the mood for another argument on its return to the ship, and was grateful when it reached the Elder's chamber without encountering the brash unblooded that had stopped it earlier. It wanted to make its report, and head back to its quarters for some sleep.

"Everything is secured?"

"Yes Elder. The human's friend was waiting for her when we arrived, but did not present any difficulties." The Elder nodded, purring in satisfaction.

"Good, she likely will need a friend." The Second waited while the Elder considered what to do next. It was surprised at the short bark of its orders.

"Train her." The Second cocked its head questioningly.

"I cannot rely completely on the remaining unblooded we have with us in this hunt. Even if she is _pyode amedha_, she has hunted hard meat before, and her experience may make the difference between success and failure." The Second nodded, it had been having similar concerns about the success of the hunt. It had expected the Elder to integrate this human hunter with the rest of the group in the hunt, but it hadn't expected to be formally instructed to train the female.

"And afterwards?"

"If she is worthy, then that will become clear. If she is not, she will not survive. We will address the future when it arrives. In the meantime, begin exposing the other blooded hunters to her, so they can make their own judgment of her abilities. When we hunt the queen I want this group to be able to operate as a group, not a collection."

"Yes, Elder. The unblooded will not be pleased, the one she chastised already is disrupting the group."

"Their happiness is not my concern. They will either learn, or die", was the growled response.

-

* * *

-

She woke up to the smell of heaven. At least that was her first reaction, but she couldn't be sure if that was the tail end of her dreams or just her stomach complaining. She realized that she hadn't eaten anything since the night before, and if the clock was any judge (it unfortunately always was), it was already late afternoon, and beginning to get dark outside. Woozily, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and into the slippers she kept there, before making her way out into the living room.

"Morning sleepy head! Food's almost ready, your timing is great." Too grumpy to argue the point just yet, she shuffled over to the sofa and sat down, gingerly testing her wounds for strain.

"Marisa, why are you still here?" she asked, as her friend brought over a steaming cup of coffee. Marisa grinned at her.

"I figured you could use the company right about now." She shook her head.

"You're probably right, only ...", her voice trailed off.

"What, babydoll?"

"You're burning the bacon hon." Marisa let out an eep and sprinted back to the kitchen, pulling the frying pan off the stove top and fanning smoke away. She laughed, and leaned back, running her fingertips across the flexible surface of the regenerating gel coating her wounds. She looked up as a shadow passed over her to see Marisa watching her, compassion in her eyes.

"Do they still hurt?" She shook her head and Marisa nodded, bending down to put a plate piled high with slightly burned bacon, fried potatoes, eggs, and toast on the coffee table in front of her friend as she continued.

"A little, but nowhere near as bad as they should. As far as I can tell there's some sort of pain killer involved with it, just there's no such thing when you put the stuff _in_. Yautja naturally heal pretty fast, and their medical technology might be painful but it's damned effective." She took up the knife and fork and began attacking her breakfast avidly. "From what the Elder said, the stuff in the medical kit that was left for me was specifically created for use on humans, so I guess it's got a similar effect for me."

"Why do you look like that's two different sorts of the blue stuff?" She looked down and saw the top of her breasts were just visible above the neckline of her night shirt, the blue of the regeneration gel contrasting with the lighter blue of the fluid she'd used previously.

"There's two sorts. The lighter blue is from a liquid I used to seal my wounds the other night, it's from a standard Yautja medical kit under the bathroom sink. I only got this new kit the same night I got beaten up pretty bad and my leg got hurt." She grinned at Marisa with a glint in her eye. "You remember, that was the leg you grabbed and tried to put new holes in." Marisa blushed and laughed.

"This is what happens when you forget to tell your friend you've been out hunting aliens all night long."

"That's what you get for missing staff meetings." Both of them cracked up laughing at some unknown shared joke that was part of the exchange.

They swapped idle small talk as she finished her food, then she took a quick shower, trying to wash off some of the powdery blue substance that was flaking away from the healed patches of skin. As she left the bathroom to go to the bedroom to equip for the night, she watched for a second as Marisa cleaned up the kitchen and the dishes. She shook her head, thankful at having such a friend for all of her life, but she knew that Marisa needed to back away somewhat. She decided to leave it until she had equipped.

As she opened the door to the hidden closet, she blinked as a light hit her eyes. She remembered suddenly the bomb on the back wall, and for a panicked second thought she'd done something wrong when the light went out, and the device went dormant. She kicked herself mentally, she'd have to warn Marisa not to go peeking through this closet any time soon. In no time, she had her armor on, but waited to place the mask over her face and connect it until she had her talk with her friend. She walked back into the living room and stood at one end of the sofa, facing Marisa.

"Hon, you can't stay here." As Marisa's face fell, she reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder, gently guiding Marisa to sit down on the end of the sofa. She looked into her friends eyes, deadly serious now. "It's not safe for you to be around Yautja." Marisa pouted.

"It's not exactly safe for you to be around them either, you know. In case you'd forgotten, one of them's planning on killing you."

"It's not planning on killing me, it's planning on hunting me. There's a difference. The whole idea is that it won't know for sure if it _can_ kill me. I can just as easily end up killing _it_. But that's not the point hon. There are so many ways you can offend Yautja. _Especially_ that _you_ could." She smiled despite herself as Marisa tried unsuccessfully to look innocent. "Part of my training was how to behave around them, you're missing that training. If you annoy them, they'll kill you. It's that simple."

"Then you need to give me a crash course on how to not piss them off, babydoll." Something about how she said that made her friend turn to stare at her.

"Why?" Marisa pointed towards the balcony doors.

"Because it seems they've come early tonight." She turned back and saw the Second and a Yautja she didn't recognize standing there as they turned their cloaks off. The Second growled something, and she remembered she needed to put the mask on to be able to understand it. She fumbled the connectors, but was finally rewarded with the wash of cool air across her face as the pressure seal drew the mask to her skin, holding it tightly, and read the words as it repeated itself.

"We have found some _kainde amedha_. We hunt now."


	12. Aut vincere aut mori

**Aut vincere aut mori**

The segmented armor panels on her backpiece protecting her spine flexed and creaked as she slammed into the wall, the air in her lungs leaving in an explosive gasp from the impact. She slumped to the floor and rolled fast as the black shape leaped through the air to land where she had fallen, talons flexing but only biting into concrete. Its tail whipped around, but she was ready for it this time and rolled back until she was almost beside the hard meat.

She kicked out, her foot connecting with the backwards-jointed ankle of a _kainde amedha_'s leg and it let out a hiss of pain as the joint gave way. It flinched backwards trying to pull itself out of the way and reposition for another attack as she scrambled back to her feet, her body screaming at her that it _hurt_, dammit! Her chest felt like someone had slammed into it with a sledgehammer, which wasn't far from the truth – the _kainde amedha_ had flicked its tail into her, only her armor had prevented the serrated plating from scoring deeply into her already abused flesh.

She backed up, trying to keep awareness of the growing pools of dangerous alien blood already spilled. They had already needed to extend the distance between themselves and the _kainde amedha_ twice to try to find a fresh area for the war raging in the basement parking lot, but they were rapidly running out of room. Her cloak had been destroyed by _kainde amedha_ talons, the same talons that had left jagged furrows down her chest plate and would have done the same to her stomach if she hadn't reacted quickly enough – the same talons now trying to paw through the ground where it had expected her to be when it landed.

Three hunters against four _kainde amedha_. The odds had been worse earlier.

-

"The Elder isn't coming?" The Second laughed, rumbling deep from its chest. It gestured to the Yautja that accompanied it.

"This is one of the blooded Yautja on the ship. It will accompany on this hunt. The Elder is leading another group tonight to also hunt _kainde amedha_. The queen appears to have decided now is the time to widen her area." She nodded, looking at Marisa to watch her reaction then realizing that she didn't have the translation appearing in a mask, so had no clue what the conversation was about. She was glad, this didn't sound like the sort of news that would make her friend feel safe right now. The Second continued briefing her.

"If the _kainde amedha_ are beginning to spread out, the nest must be reaching a large size. We need to hunt them and cut their numbers down, force them to withdraw while the queen rethinks her strategy to fight us."

"Makes sense." Marisa looked at her, waiting patiently, and she sighed – she knew she'd have to explain part of this or she was quite likely to either get nagged at in front of these Yautja, or worse Marisa would do something stupid - like demand to go on the hunt to see what was going on. She was surprised that Marisa hadn't thought to ask that already, it would be a typical Marisa move.

"The _kainde amedha_ are spreading their wings and we're going to let them know that we don't like the idea." Marisa nodded.

"You never said the candy things could fly." She groaned behind her mask.

"I am _so_ going to have words with you when I get back." Marisa grinned.

"Good, now you have extra motivation to come back. Go babydoll, do what you have to do."

"Thanks. I think." She shook her head, Marisa could be so cutely infuriating at times.

As they made their way across the rooftops, heading back towards the border of the business and industrial visits, the Second had explained more.

"A _kainde amedha_ was found scouting not far from the ship during the day." She gasped, that was bad news on several levels. The second nodded as it saw she understood the seriousness of the discovery. "It was killed, and we traced its trail back to the same general area that you hunt in. We found a building with more recent hosts. It wasn't the nest, but the Elder believes the _kainde amedha_ are changing their practices to take into account the flaws in the first stage life forms."

"And we're going there?" The Second growled a negative.

"A building nearby has an underground portion which seems to be used for egg storage. We are going there to destroy the eggs and any _kainde amedha_ we find there." She'd stopped then and looked at the Second.

"Just the three of us?" She asked in surprise. The Second stepped up to her until they were face to chest – her face, its chest, and growled down at her softly.

"If you're afraid, I can always kill you here." She looked up into its mask, swallowing. She wasn't making a very good impression here. Then she had a thought.

"Any sentient being would be concerned about taking on an unknown number of _kainde amedha_. Those who are fearless are usually too stupid to recognize the danger." The hunter beside them growled angrily, but the Second started to laugh. It clapped her on the shoulder with a claw so hard her knees almost buckled, then spoke to the other Yautja.

"I warned you, she does not think the same way a young blood would. She might survive this after all." She blinked, but as the other hunter growled she had no time to ask what the Second had meant, as they were off again.

As they reached their objective, she started to get a better idea of where they were – one of those multi-use office block buildings, mostly vacant but with some windows still lit in the early evening gloom. The reference to an underground part of the building became evident, it had an underground parking lot. The bay doors were closed by steel roller shutters, but as the Second made to bend down and lift one, she put her hand out to touch it gently on the elbow. It paused and looked at her, head cocked to one side in question.

"That way will make noise and alert the prey. There will be a way to that area from inside the building we can use." The Second nodded and motioned for her to lead the way. The three cloaked hunters made their way to a side door, and she clenched one fist to extend her wristblades, spiking them through the doorknob and shattering the lock. She retracted the blades as she slowly opened the door, and they were inside. It only took them a few moments to make their way through to the building atrium, and she spotted the sign for the stairs leading down to the parking lot.

She cracked the door at the bottom of the stairs open quietly, her senses and the sensors in her mask straining to detect any sign of trouble. Finding none, she opened the door and walked through, stepping to one side and dropping into a crouch as the two Yautja followed her into the parking lot and crouched similarly, forming a semi circle from the door. She switched vision modes, rapidly cycling through to try and detect any _kainde amedha_ skulking in the area, but the area was clear.

Reaching slowly down to her thigh, she released the spear from its mounting clips on her armor and held it easily as the Second gave a hand gesture that she assumed meant "let's go". The three hunters rose and spread out slightly as the Second led them towards a caged-off maintenance area at the back of the parking area.

As they got closer, she could feel the environmental control of her mesh undergarment start cooling, and she realized that the air here towards the back was warmer, more humid. She could see a large vent in the wall close to the caged area, and assumed the kainde amedha had chosen this place to store the eggs because they could more easily control the environment, an assumption that was borne out as they finally got close enough to the cage to see the large leathery eggs inside.

They paused as a low hiss was heard by all three of them at the same moment. Before any of them had a chance to react, the cover plate to the vent blew outwards, followed by a swarm of chitinous _kainde amedha_. Without thinking, the three hunters separated further, giving each other enough room to use their weapons freely, and the battle was on.

Her first thought was to take out the eggs, and she was bringing her plasma weapon up to bear on them, planning to blast them into oblivion with one bolt of destruction, when a hard meat charged directly towards her, even though she was cloaked. She realized that it could sense her regardless, and changed her priorities. As it came closer, she waited, and then squeezed the handle of her spear, extending the ends. She brought it up and around, the point on one end slicing a thin line across the head of the hard meat attacking her.

It flinched as the momentum of her swing took her around, and as she came back she spun the spear underhand and thrust it up into the alien's torso. It screeched as she squeezed the handles, retracting the spear and pulling it from the hard meat's body before blood could start to flow. All of her training, the practice she had been made to repeat time and again, came back to her as her mind dropped into the headspace of a hunter. She moved fluidly, her speed and agility dancing her out of reach of the hard meat's grasping talons. Everything felt as if it were moving in slow motion, all of her senses firing signals to her brain, her awareness of her surroundings so clear and sharp.

She could see the Yautja as they used their weapons with devastating effect, _kainde amedha_ blood and entrails splashing and hissing as it landed on the solid concrete, ripped from hard meat bodies by the brutal blades of the hunters.

She could see the hard meat trying in frustration to grab her.

She could feel where the _kainde amedha_ was going to move to before _it_ even knew, and she instinctively removed one of the throwing star weapons from her belt, pressing down on the center to release the five points, fashioned and honed from the talons of _kainde amedha_ themselves. She turned and brought her arm up and across, holding the throwing star in her hand as it slashed across the stomach and chest of the hard meat. A spray of alien blood came sheeting out from the cut, narrowly missing her as she dodged frantically, but she wasn't fast enough to avoid the _kainde amedha_, as it reached out an arm and the tip of one talon scored a white hot line of pain in her side.

She danced back out of range and without thinking launched the throwing star at the hard meat. It curved an arc briefly through the air, slicing into the shoulder of the alien before soaring off into the distance, and she dropped to one knee, clenching her fists to extend her wristblades. Thinking it had hurt her, the kainde amedha moved in for the kill, but as it bent over to reach for her, she sprang to her feet and leaped up, wristblades carving into the head of the alien as she rose up, then cutting through the front of its head as it staggered forwards and she brought her arm down sharply. With a convulsive shudder it dropped to the ground, just as she noticed a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. The throwing star!

_She ducked._

The air whistled as the weapon went over her head and she could hear the slap of the weapon against flesh. With trepidation, she turned to see what she had managed to hit, and saw the Second, its spear in one hand boring into the torso of a _kainde amedha_, a throwing star in its other hand. Her throwing star.

She was distracted by the sight, and missed the _kainde amedha_ that landed on her from behind, talons reaching around and over as she wrenched herself free, rasping against the Yautja metal of her armor. Both of them off balance, she was getting her bearings when she was hit by the tail that lashed into her chest, sending her flying into the wall.

-

She clenched her right fist, flexing it to one side, and her wristblades shot forwards and rotated 180 degrees, angling the blades outwards. She ducked under the grasping claws of the hard meat and pivoted, backhanding it and slicing deeply into its torso where the ribs would be if this were a human. It screeched, the tone piecing through her skull as dark green acid spurted from the twin canyons her blades cut in its flesh, the momentum of her strike carrying her beyond and behind the _kainde amedha_ and away from the spray of blood.

Seeing it raise up in reflex from the pain in its side, she seized the opportunity and brought her other arm up, pointing it at the curve of alien spine arched so well and triggered three rapid shots of barbed arrows, their Y-shaped tips shooting from the vambrace housing of her left wristblade and crashing between the spine-like paired row of organs that ran down the creature's back to cut deeply through the alien exoskeleton and sever the nerves between its simple brain and the rest of its body.

As it collapsed to the floor in a boneless heap, unable to do more than mewl its helplessness and fear of its imminent demise, she stepped forwards quickly and grasped the back of it's elongated head, pushing it up and forwards to expose the _kainde amedha_'s thin neck for the coup de grace of her wristblades. While the head fell clear of the weakly pulsing spout of blood from the stump on its shoulders, she was already switching vision modes to search for her next target, leaving the remains of the alien to sink into a widening pool of acid-dissolved ground.

Absently she flicked her right arm outwards, clearing the acid-resistant coating on her blades of the alien blood remaining on them before it had a chance to work its way past the coating, and noted the position of her companions. The Second was going face to face with one of the hard meat, raw strength against strength as the alien flailed at it with its claws, hitting only air as the Second effortlessly dodged the blows. The other was on its back on the floor, a _kainde amedha_ straddling it as it tried to gore the Yautja with its feet.

She ignored its plight, she knew that if she attempted to help it she would shame and embarrass it, but she saw the last _kainde amedha_ rush towards the pair on the ground and figured she could take out that one before it entered the fight - it was hers!. Without thought, she glanced upwards to the blue icon in her mask's displays, bringing the plasma weapon on her left shoulder online. It pivoted on her shoulder and tracked in on her line of sight as she focused on the rushing _kainde amedha_, and as the tracking bars met to flash the bright red triangle of target lock superimposed over the spindly shape of the black alien, she let loose a bolt of controlled and focused electromagnetic hell.

She watched without emotion as the blue sphere of energy struck the _kainde amedha_ poised to leap to aid its fellow, coming from the side and blasting through its arm before reducing most of its torso into an ionized cloud of nothingness, the near-absolute zero temperature of the plasma shot in cold mode freeze-cauterizing the edges of the disaster it had caused to the creature's body.

Her control of the energy level had been exact, the force was enough to destroy the chest of the creature but not carry beyond and damage anything else. Her training with the low powered version of the weapon had shown she could instinctively gauge the necessary level of power needed for the purpose she fired and no more, and her talent easily adapted to this fully enabled version of a Yautja's long range firepower.

The momentum of its charge carried the corpse of the _kainde amedha_ a step or two more before colliding with the hard meat trying to claw the hunter on the ground, throwing that one off balance. The hunter didn't hesitate, exploiting this distraction to maximum lethal effect and punched it's wristblades into the _kainde amedha_'s 'face' with a wet sickening crunch. It rolled out from underneath as the limp bodies came down, coming to its feet effortlessly and clear of the bile-tinted alien blood spreading out from its kill.

The Second was locked with its own foe, its claws gripping the _kainde amedha_'s arms at the elbows and pushing them wide apart in a display of sheer strength. As the hard meat opened its mouth, trying to bring its inner jaw into play to punch through the armor, skin, and bone of the Second's head, the hunter head butted the alien, the ribbed surface of its mask shattering the _kainde amedha_'s mouth. The hard meat slobbered watery slime as silvered teeth fell away from its jaws, the inner one shooting forwards but with no effect other than to impact sore alien flesh against the unyielding Yautja armor.

Inexorably, the Second pushed the _kainde amedha_'s arms out until they stood chest to chest, the hard meat stressed as it was crucified by the Second. Something had to give, and in the end it was alien tissue and tendons that parted, the hunter ripping the alien's arms from its shoulders. The _kainde amedha_ staggered backwards at the sudden absence of resistance against its struggles, and the Second tossed the arms aside.

It released its spear from the mounting on the backpiece of its armor and squeezed the handle, extending it to its full deadly length. Calmly, methodically, the Second advanced on the _kainde amedha_ as it tried to back up out of harm's way, but it had nowhere to run to. Crouching for a moment and biding its time, the Second thrust forwards and up, the tip of the spear impaling itself under the chin of the _kainde amedha_ close to its neck and continuing through the skull and brain of the alien until it emerged, cracking an exit through the top of the creature's head.

The death wail of the alien was cut off sharply as its head was removed at the neck, and the Yautja stepped backwards to raise its arms in victory, the head of the _kainde amedha_ spiked on the end of the spear. It let out an eerie roar of victory, and the other hunter stood from removing the head of its own victim to echo the cry, the sounds reverberating and echoing throughout the basement of the parking lot.

She felt it coursing through her, the exultation of victory, and helpless to prevent the emotions from boiling inside her demanding release she threw her arms out, arching her back as she raised up onto the balls of her feet and screamed, the pure unbridled force of her feelings shocking her, yet she reveled in them. After a minute, her scream of victory tailed off but for a moment more she remained tensed, every muscle in her body pulled taut, before she finally allowed herself to relax, collapsing in on herself, gasping for breath.

Now she knew, she really _knew_. Everything clicked into place, why the Yautja hunted, why the Elder was training her to be a challenge. She could feel it deep inside, the thrill, the feeling of having been tested and winning, beating the odds and tasting the victory.

Now that it was over, she felt curiously empty - it was almost anti-climactic. She felt totally drained after releasing all her emotion, her rage, her pride, her challenge. She looked up slowly to the two Yautja as they came towards her, both of them slinging a _kainde amedha_ head each over their back to mount in their trophy vaults on the ship later. The air around them was filled with the biting acrid mist rising from the melting puddles of ground where _kainde amedha_ blood had fallen, but her mask kept the air she breathed pure.

The hunter placed its claw on her shoulder, then, and shook her gently. "Not bad, for a _pyode amedha_." It looked around at the site of the war. Already the _kainde amedha_ corpses has sunken below ground level, their blood having eaten the concrete to leave large craters. She looked around and counted nine hard meat bodies, before she had a sudden thought.

"How do we clean this up? We can't let the humans know about the _kainde_ ..." The Second held up a claw to interrupt her as the hunter pulled several objects from its belt, handing three each to the Second and herself, keeping some for itself. She looked down into her hand and saw a simple tube, with a button at one end. She cocked her head to the hunter quizzically.

"Push the end, drop the device in the hole, step back. It is a small plasma charge, it will detonate and destroy anything within a few feet." She nodded slowly.

"Sort of like a hand grenade? Nice weapon." The Second growled, and she looked at it sharply. "What did I say?"

"These are used to remove _kainde amedha_ bodies, the acidic blood makes them unsafe to hang as we would most other prey species. But to use _those_ as weapons would not be a test of a hunter." She nodded again, and looked down, her cheeks flaming red under her mask in embarrassment.

"I meant no offense, Second. I had not encountered these devices before." The Second looked at her for a long moment, then it pulled something from its belt, handing it to her - her throwing star.

"You are still _pyode amedha_ yet, young blood. You will learn."


	13. Res ipsa loquitur, sed quid in infernos

**Res ipsa loquitur, sed quid in infernos dicit?**

She couldn't keep her eyes off _it_. She was supposed to be making sure there was nothing hiding in the vent, as the Yautja dispatched the eggs and their lethal cargoes, but her gaze was drawn back time and again to where _it_ laid on an unscathed section of concrete.

She hadn't even remembered putting _it_ out of harm's way. One minute she'd cut through the _kainde amedha_'s neck, the next she was firing plasma towards another. She wasn't sure how much her memories could be trusted though. She knew that they had been down here less than five minutes so far, but to her it felt like an hour or more. Regardless of her memory, however, there _it_ sat. The question was, what the hell was she going to _do_ with _it_?

She checked inside the vent as far as she could see, but came up with nothing beyond large puddles of the slime hard meat seemed to produce in copious amounts. She turned back and found the two Yautja standing behind her, the Second examining her. It pointed to her side, where blood was oozing from the cut the _pyode amedha_ had managed to make at the start of the fight. She looked down, she hadn't even realized she was still bleeding, albeit slowly, so caught up in the exhilaration of the hunt and her confusion about _it_ she had been.

She nodded to the second, and both the Yautja watched her curiously as she unclipped the medical kit from the small of her back, freeing it from her armor, and crouched. Quickly she opened the kit up, and selected a vial of the blue liquid. Appraising her wound, she was grateful that she wouldn't need the gel, and she pulled out one of the gauze pads she'd added to the kit herself. She tipped some of the blue liquid onto the pad, before, breathing slowly, she pressed it against the wound. She had to repeat the process three times to coat the length of her cut with the liquid, but she was proud that she only screamed once. She packed the kit away again, and was prepared to leave but the two Yautja hadn't moved. She looked suspiciously at them, their body language was almost awkward.

"What?", she asked eventually, exasperated. The Second turned and pointed to _it_. She looked down. The two Yautja looked at each other, and the hunter stepped forwards, reaching out a clawed hand to trace the scars _kainde amedha_ talons has scored into the surface of her armor. It looked into the opaque lenses of her eyes in the mask, and growled, sounding tentative - almost as if worried it was prying.

"You believe you did not earn its head?" She returned the hunters gaze steadily, but her voice quavered noticeably.

"It fought well, it almost won. But I have no place to put a _kainde amedha_ skull, and even if I did, I'm still only a human. It doesn't feel right to take trophies the same way Yautja do, it's like I'm trying to pretend to be something I'm not." She hoped she was making sense, and was rewarded by the hunter inclining its head and stepping back. She thought the matter was dropped, but the Second had other ideas.

"The Elder needs to be consulted on this, young blood." She was about to argue when the Second drew itself up. "Remove the traces of _kainde amedha_, retrieve the trophy, and we will find the others. We need to report on this incident regardless." She nodded in resignation, she knew the body language of a Yautja that had made its mind up well, there would be nothing she could say or do to change its mind at this stage.

Working back towards the stairwell, the three hunters dropped the "grenades" into the craters the alien blood had eaten away in the concrete, immolating the remains in cleansing plasma fire. When there was one hole left, they policed all the remains that had escaped destruction excepting _it_, managing to gather them all in the last crater where the Second triggered the device. Now all that remained were holes, which would be hard to explain away, but impossible for humans to begin to explain. It was considered evidence unavoidable but acceptable to remain.

She was looking at _it_, trying to figure out how she was going to carry _it_. _It_ was almost as long as her torso was tall, and didn't come with convenient carrying handles. The hunter noticed her trying to decide what to do and walked over to her. Deferentially, it motioned to a spot on the side of her armor, and she pressed it curiously. A thin skein of fabric came from where she pressed, and she blinked. She had no idea that was there. Gently she pulled on the thread, and it unrolled from somewhere inside her armor. When she stopped pulling it, the end was cut automatically, leaving her with a foot of very thin yet incredibly strong cord in her hand. She looked at it stupidly for a second, then to the hunter, who was shaking with repressed laughter.

"Inside the back of your armor is a spool of that cord. It has many uses, but for the most part we use it to hang bodies. If you wish I can show you how to fashion it so you can carry the trophy?" She nodded gratefully, trying not to think about the "hanging bodies" part, as the hunter began drawing out several feet of cord.

"I don't suppose anyone considered handing out a manual with all of this stuff, did they?", she muttered darkly. The Second purred with laughter as it approached the two.

"Where would the challenge be in that?" She couldn't help but laugh.

The hunter wrapped one end of the cord around the front of the _kainde amedha_ head, showing her a complicated knot that it used to cinch the cord tight to the flesh of the alien's skull, then made a series of figure eight loops from front to back, finishing off with another loop at the back of the head. When the hunter was finished, the head was secured, the slack between the two loops making a thicker bundle of cord.

She nodded her gratitude, and lifted the head up, putting the loop over one shoulder so the head hung down behind her crosswise. She shrugged a little to settle the weight, and the Second growled in approval.

"My cloak was destroyed in the fight. How am I supposed to get out of here unseen with an alien head hanging off my back?", she asked, lightly. The Second snorted.

"You were adept enough at ducking during the fight, you can use the skill to hide behind things or in the shadows until we reach the rooftops again." She winced, she'd hoped it had forgotten that. "Keep to the shadows, use the darkness. We shall scout for you, and warn you of anything that is coming." The second looked at her. "If a _pyode amedha_ does see you, it will die. We can not permit our presence to be compromised." Her eyes widened behind the mask as the full import of that sunk in. They would kill a human just for seeing her? She was about to object when the Second warned her. "I suggest that you be adept with your stealth, young blood, if you do not wish that to become necessary."

The Second had understood her instinctive reaction to duck. It had trained many hunters and seen the same response in most all of them at the beginning, it knew that it would take practice for this human to trust herself enough to try to catch a returning throwing star. Whilst its words about her stealth sounded as if it was punishing her for forgetting the Elder's instructions on the matter, it had an ulterior motive in mind.

It had watched this human become reliant on the cloak, and did not want her to lose the skills she had developed long before she began using the armor. She had hunted stealthily before they had arrived, and she needed to rediscover those skills – the cloak might not always be an option for concealment. It determined, correctly, that its warning about those who saw her would die would add to her motivation. Despite its misgivings about this _pyode amedha_, it might be rewarding to train her after all.

-

She found as they jogged away from the building that resting her hand on the bottom of the loop as it hung by her left hip stopped the head from bouncing as they moved, and pretty soon became so accustomed to its presence she forgot it was there. They moved several miles along the industrial area border with the commercial district, and soon were able to make most of their travel along rooftops.

At that stage she breathed easier, the dire results of being seen focused her desire to be unseen very efficiently. Always in the back of her mind was the knowledge that if she slipped up, and someone saw her, they would quickly fall to the blades of the Yautja. She had no intentions of having such a death on her conscience. They had met little traffic, both Yautja giving her ample warning to be able to hide in doorways, behind cars or walls, or to duck into alleyways.

As they approached the rendezvous spot the Elder had selected, she scanned the area and started to tremble. She could see many cloaked Yautja already there, including the Elder, more than she had ever been around before in her life. She was treading on very dangerous ground now.

She saw the Yautja with the Elder tense as she came into view, keeping a wary eye on her as she got closer, but the Elder turned its cloak off and they followed suit. She came to a halt in front of the Elder, and as the Second and the hunter turned their cloaks off either side of her, she bowed her head, crossing her hands across her chest in that peculiar combination of mark of respect and combat stance she had adopted each time they had met.

The Elder returned her salute with an incline of its head, then crouched down. She joined the other Yautja in spreading out slightly before also crouching, creating the ritual circle around the Elder that Yautja formed when in a group discussion. The Elder looked to the Second, who stood and faced it.

"We entered the area with the eggs, Elder, but were attacked by many _kainde amedha_. We killed them, and destroyed both the remains and the eggs." The Elder nodded.

"Was there anything to tell you where the nest might be?" The Second growled a negative. The Elder snorted in disgust. "It seems all three parties tonight came across hard meat, although your group seems to have encountered the largest number." It turned to face her, but its question was for the Second.

"What of the human?" It asked, pointedly. The Second looked at her, then reached across to lift the _kainde amedha_ head from her back and over her head, placing it on the ground in the center of the circle. There was an buzz of muttering from the gathered Yautja, but a glance around by the Second quickly silenced them all before it continued.

"The human hunted well, Elder. She took three _kainde amedha_, one with her --------", the translator still couldn't decide what that word was, "but two with blades alone. This one", it gestured to the head on the ground, "fought well, a challenge a Yautja would be proud of overcoming." The Elder nodded, as the hunter that had accompanied them spoke up.

"I would hunt with her again." She blinked in amazement. The blooded hunter had hardly said a word to her, or even about her, all night, yet here it was voicing its approval? The other Yautja present, except perhaps the Second and the Elder itself, seemed to be just as surprised.

"Why do you say that?" The Second dropped into a crouch as the hunter rose to address the circle.

"It would only be by observing her that I would be able to avoid surprises when hunting her, Elder. She is resourceful, to hunt her without observing her would be an error of complacency." The hunter turned slightly to face one of the Yautja in the circle, and she started as she recognized skin markings and trophy belt of the one it addressed - it was the Yautja that she had spoken to in the alleyway for calling her "merely human, nothing more than a prey animal". She might not understand the Yautja language well enough to not need the translator, but she'd heard the words in that phrase often enough that she'd understood what the hunter had said very well.

"To assume this human female is like other _pyode amedha_ would likely result in falling to her", the hunter stated, simply. The Yautja she had spoken to growled loudly in denial and stood. After a moment, the hunter beside her crouched down, and she waited tensely.

"She is _pyode amedha_, prey. She is no threat to a Yautja except by her knowing of us. She should be hunted now, and the matter would be resolved." it growled and clicked angrily. From the other Yautja in the circle came growls of agreement, but she was surprised at how few. It seemed the opinion of the Elder, Second, and the blooded hunter beside her carried some weight in the judgment of most of the group. The loud-mouthed Yautja, emboldened somewhat by the show of support, even if scant, continued.

"Look at her, she wears our armor, carries our weapons, and dares to attend a Council with ..." The Elder cut it off sharply.

"She attends Council because she has hunted with us, and until the matter of the _kainde amedha_ is resolved she is considered part of this group. She does not 'dare' to attend, she attends because _I_ wish it. Her status after this hunt will be decided after the hunt." The Elder turned to her, cocking its head to one side in thought. It pointed down at the head of the hard meat she had returned with. "Her status _during_ this hunt however needs to be addressed." She blinked.

"_Oh no, no way you're going to ..."_ She didn't have time to complete the thought. The Elder motioned to the angry Yautja, which paused but crouched down before the Elder had to repeat the gesture. It turned, looking at each of the assembled Yautja.

"She is not Yautja, yet she has hunted _kainde amedha_ and won. It is my decision that until the situation with the queen and the nest is resolved, this _pyode amedha_ is to be respected for that accomplishment and her skills. She is to be considered blooded." The Yautja which had angrily objected earlier looked as if it was about to leap to its feet to object once more, but the Elder stared at it and it reconsidered.

Satisfied the hunter wasn't going to interrupt, the Elder turned to her and motioned for her to stand. She did so hesitantly, glancing around to try to penetrate the masks each of the Yautja wore to get some idea of what they thought of all this, but she was met only with impassive gray Yautja metal.

The Elder took a step forwards and crouched over the head she had brought back and examined it again. Growling to itself, it reached into the hard meat's mouth, grasping the inner mouth then pulling, hard, until it came loose from the head with an ugly crunch of separating gristle. The Elder held the semi-rigid _kainde amedha_ flesh gingerly, then stepped towards her. She had to head this off.

"Elder, I cannot be blooded. I am _pyode amedha_, not Yautja." She had another thought. "Not to mention that the mark of a blooded hunter would be noticed by the prey, affecting my ability to hunt undetected." The Elder let out a laugh.

"You are correct in what you say, but I do not intend to mark _you_. Your status is only for as long as this hunt continues. Therefore, you will wear the mark on your armor only. Once the hunt is ended, the mark can be removed. Do you understand?" She thought it over, she hadn't considered such a thing. She nodded her head once, growling her assent as she did so. The Elder laughed again, and advanced towards her, holding the hard meat inner mouth part away from its body. As it reached her, it squeezed the flesh in its hand firmly, until a drop of the acidic blood of the _kainde amedha_ beaded on the raw edge where the mouth had once been attached, and raised it up to her eye level.

"You have hunted _kainde amedha_. Wear this mark so others may know that you have proven yourself worthy. Let it be a reminder to you each day that you stand as a blooded hunter amongst Yautja, and earned that place." The Elder finished reciting what sounded like a ritual statement, then pressed a corner of the blood-coated end of the inner mouth against the forehead of her mask, drawing it across until acid-scorched into the resilient Yautja metal was the same symbol as it wore – two angled vertical lines, with a line horizontal near the top of them, forming a stylized italic "TT".

Satisfied, the Elder stepped back a pace, raised the grisly alien organ high, and roared. Without hesitation the Second and the hunter that had accompanied them sprang to their feet and roared their pleasure, and she was surprised to note that of the six remaining Yautja in the circle, five of them did the same. The only dissenting opinion was the Yautja who had argued against her, but that didn't surprise her. She was fairly certain that this Yautja was also the owner of the eyes that she remembered so clearly, even out of the haze she was in on board the ship before. It stood with the others, but that was all.

After the congratulatory roar had died down, the Yautja all crouched once more, except for herself, the Elder, and the Second who stood beside her. The Second gestured to the kainde amedha head lying on the ground.

"The young blood has said she is unable to take the trophy, Elder, that she has nowhere to place it in her nest." The Elder growled, a hint of frustration coming across in its tone. The hunter that had accompanied them spoke up again.

"I would be honored to place it in my trophy vault on the ship until the matter is resolved, Elder." The Second looked across her to the hunter, but must have changed its mind as it remained silent, turning instead back to face the Elder who was watching both of them with keen interest. It let out a low growling laugh.

"Very well. You can teach her how to clean it first." The Second laughed then, and it was the other hunter's turn to look across her but change its mind about what it was going to say.

She wasn't paying full attention to the interplay between the Yautja, she kept coming back to the one hunter who was adamantly opposed to her being part of this hunt, at least if she wasn't part of it as prey. She wasn't sure why it had taken such an irrational dislike to her, surely it had understood why she had warned it that first time they'd encountered each other? She had a sudden flash of insight, and lifted the fingertips of one hand to feel the scar on the forehead of her mask the Elder had marked into the metal there. _She was blooded, and it wasn't!_ And even back at that first meeting, she had just killed two _kainde amedha_, when it had yet to kill even one yet. It was _jealous_?

Inwardly she shrugged. She wasn't going to let it bother her – she had an Elder waiting to hunt her, and she knew she had just taken a very large step towards being considered ready for that hunt to begin. An unblooded Yautja with a bruised ego was the least of her worries.

-

* * *

-

They moved quietly, surprisingly so for their seeming bulk. The only sound to give them away could have been the soft swishing of the black fabric wrapped tightly around their legs as they ran quietly towards their target, but even in the calm night air and stillness it was still impossible.

As they reached the door, they paused, readying themselves for their assault. The leader's eyes looked out from between the strips of cloth that enclosed his head, leaving only a band of skin coated in dark paste beneath visible from eye to water-soft-blue eye. Without a word or gesture, they were ready, and moved. One of them pulled the door open, quickly but not jerking, and the other three filed in at a run, balancing on the balls of soft-shoed feet.

The two men inside looked up in amazement, but barely registered they were under attack before they fell, one with three small metallic discs embedded deeply in his chest, the other twisting downwards, a thin line of blood beginning to seep through the rent in his clothing, and body, that traveled from one shoulder to the opposite hip. With care, two of the men caught the falling guard, a third taking hold of his slung shotgun, lowering it all to the ground gently.

Acting as one, the four figures in black started down the corridor that led deeper into the building, the three that had ensured the body didn't make noise enough to alarm the others reaching over their shoulders to draw long silvered swords, cousins to the one the fourth held and had used to cut into the guard. Reaching an intersection, the four split up into pairs, and began hunting their prey for the night.

One pair entered the fence's room, to find him with customers – three teenagers, two guys and a girl. They didn't hesitate as they ran past the teenagers, and all three fell before they even knew the black garbed men were in the room, wondering what had happened. The fence reached for the gun under the counter, but he was too slow, much too slow, as the blade of one of the attackers came down and impaled through his hand and into the counter beneath it. As he opened his mouth to scream in agony, the sword wielder drew a short dagger with his other hand then stepped around, plunging the blade into the back of the fence's neck until the tip cut through his adam's apple and windpipe to come out his throat at the front.

The fence dropped like a stone, and the man made as if to pull the knife out by the simple expedient of cutting sideways through the neck when his compatriot hissed a quiet note, and he caught himself, slowly pulling the blade back out instead. He pulled the sword blade clear of the counter, releasing the man's hand to fall limply to the ground by his side in a widening puddle of blood, then both men in black turned and left the room without a backwards glance.

The other pair headed quietly up the stairs, until they came out onto a landing with doors running down either side, groans of passion (or of pain) coming from behind many of them. Methodically, they began to work their way through the rooms, one either side of the corridor – opening the door quickly then running in, their blades falling once, twice in each room, a killing stroke each time. By the time they reached the end of the corridor, their dark clothes hid large bloodstains, their hands tinted scarlet in the pools of light from the overhead bulbs.

The assault of the four men was so sudden, so violent, and so efficiently executed, that still not one voice had been raised in alarm, nor had there been any sounds out of place. This was a necessary factor as the four of them met up once more before reaching their final objective.

Given warning, the occupants of the last room could make it impossible for them to complete their mission successfully, and worse, risked there being witnesses to their attack. Stalking silently down the corridor to their final objective, the leader reached into the folds of his clothing and pulled out a small flat object. One of the others produced a small spray can, and as they reached the door began to spray a thin bead of foam around the frame. When the bead was complete, he pressed a small box up against part of the rapidly solidifying foam and depressed a button, and they split up either side of the door.

The crack of the explosion deafened those inside the room that they didn't hear the crash of the door hitting the ground. Their silence was encouraged a second later as the leader tossed in the hockey-puck shaped device he'd produced, and it detonated adding more shock to their abused eardrums, as well as flash blinding them with the intensity of light that accompanied the blast. Bleeding from their ears, the hapless victims inside were no challenge for the attackers, and fell inside seconds to the razor honed edges of the attacker's swords.

They retraced their steps through each room, taking the small daggers they all carried and driving them through the back of the neck of their victims, before reaching into their mouths with pliers to wrench loose the incisors, placing them in bags each had for the purpose. They had left no-one alive, and by the time they had finished, all of the corpses had the same cut in the back of their necks, and were missing their incisors.

As quickly as it had started, the attack was over, the four men vanishing into the darkness of the street outside.


	14. Embolii ii

**Embolium iv - Honores mutant mores**

She was getting tired, but her brain refused to slow down. _She'd been blooded!_ Temporarily at least, until the hunt was done and the _kainde amedha_ threat had been neutralized, but still ... she'd always been told that no Yautja would blood her, that the whole idea would shame the Elder and its line and cause it to be ridiculed, yet here was an Elder that had given her a place amongst the hunting party.

She'd been stunned by the roaring of the Yautja as they celebrated her blooding, and stood bemusedly as all of them came to her, clasping her shoulder in one hand briefly and nodding to her before they engaged their cloaks and faded into the night. Even the Yautja she had tagged as "the asshole" in her mind came up to her, but the force of its clasp slammed the breath out of her, and the grip it took of her shoulder reminded her of the kainde amedha's talons when they had embedded in her calf. The Elder was the last in the line, and as it came closer she bowed her head low with respect. It purred, appreciating her demonstration of respect, and as it clasped her shoulder with one claw, it gently lifted her head with the other until she was looking up into the eyes of its mask.

"You have done well so far, young blood. Do not embarrass me."

"I won't, Elder, but I have to ask ... Why? There was no need to ..." It interrupted her.

"You earned the mark, you earned the place, just as stringently as I would require any Yautja to do before being blooded. Perhaps I even required more of you than I do of them, because you are _pyode amedha_, and prey." It growled behind the mask in amusement. "Regardless that you are prey, We both learned under the same Elder. Sending you on better than before you came in a way is also my gift to it, my way of showing gratitude for all that I learned." She nodded as best she could with the Elder's hand still under her chin.

It removed its hands then tapped her shoulder, looking an unspoken question to the Second.

"It was destroyed in the fight with the kainde amedha whose head she took, Elder." She couldn't tell if the Elder's answering growl was one of pleasure or annoyance.

"I will send one of the hunters back with a replacement, as well as ------- to repair the damage done to the armor." She blinked behind the mask, another unknown word. So much for technology overcoming the language barrier. The Elder turned its cloak on and she watched it leave, the Second growling assent to it's final decision. With the Elder's departure, that left her alone on the rooftop with the Second, and the hunter that had accompanied them.

And _it_.

She looked at _it_, lying there where the Second had placed _it_ after taking _it_ from her, where the Elder had left _it_ after ripping out _it_s inner mouth to use to mark her, or at least her armor. _It_ looked incongruous on the pebbles that lined the rooftop, almost harmless without the six feet of deadly body _it_ had been once attached to. She looked across at the two Yautja, waiting patiently for her. She paused for a minute, trying to collect her thoughts, wondering how she should approach this, but then realized with a start that she was blooded now, and remembered what she had learned that meant within Yautja society.

She crouched down and cocked her head towards the two hunters. In a moment they joined her, forming a circle once more, and she looked to the hunter she had only met tonight.

"Why?", she asked, simply.

"Why not?", it shot back. She grinned inside her mask, she had half expected that reply, and knew the trap that was built into it. She'd made that mistake before.

"I am not going to list reasons why you shouldn't do what you want to do, hunter." Both Yautja purred amusement at her response. The hunter cocked its head for a second in thought, before speaking again.

"You fight well, in a style that would be difficult for Yautja to emulate. I am always interested in learning more ways to hunt." The Second snorted.

"As if he doesn't know more ways to hunt than the rest of the group combined. Except," it added, "perhaps the Elder. He is the weaponsmaster of the ship, as well as possibly the best at unarmed hunting." She nodded, then looked up sharply.

"Wait a minute, you said '_he_'?" The Second laughed loudly, almost falling backwards in the process, the hunter looking at them both. It took the Second a minute to collect itself, before it played a loop for the hunter in explanation.

"_I don't even know if it's male or female, let alone if the two species can mate_", her voice from the other night as Marisa was being Marisa. The Second broke into laughter again, joined this time by the hunter. She crouched there annoyed, waiting for them to get over whatever huge joke had them so amused.

"Yes, we have males, and females, young blood", the Second answered her between gasps as he tried to collect himself. "But no, Yautja and _pyode amedha_ cannot mate." She cocked her head in question. "We are both males, as are all of the Yautja on this hunt." She nodded, growling understanding at the same time. She didn't notice how she answered, but both of the Yautja did.

"Do females hunt?" The Second was about to answer when the hunter, the weaponsmaster, put his claw against the Second's arm to stop him. Looking to her, the hunter growled.

"Remove your mask." She blinked, but after waiting for an explanation and getting none, she reached up and disconnected the mask from her face, before pulling it away to break the seal. As it came loose the world plunged into darkness, and she almost bolted upright before she remembered that it was night. She'd become so used to seeing the world through the vision of her mask that it took her eyes a second to adjust to "normal". The hunter reached across for her mask and took it, looked at the inside briefly then passed it to the Second, growling something she didn't understand. The Second looked inside the mask then at her.

"Yes." She looked at the Second in confusion.

"Yes, what? Is there something wrong with the mask? Did it get damaged in the fight?" The Second simply handed her the mask back and motioned her to put it back on. Once the connections were made to her armor again, she repeated the question anxiously.

"No, the mask is undamaged."

"Then what were you looking at, and what did 'yes' mean?" The weaponsmaster answered her.

"I pointed out to him that you are using the mask in its default state, heat sensitive. I would have expected you to be using the amplification mode that is designed for human eyes, not one designed for Yautja vision." She hadn't really thought about it, she just used the mode as it came up. She was about to say so when the hunter continued.

"And you understood him when he answered you, without the mask on." She almost fell over as she realized it ... no, _he_, was right.

"But I already know some words of the Yautja language, that's how I knew when asshole was slagging humans off." Both Yautja cocked their heads and she mentally kicked herself. "I mean, the Yautja who objected to my being blooded." The Second laughed.

"An apt term, but I suggest you keep it to yourself. I do not think that one will survive this hunt, though." The hunter growled strong agreement.

"You know the sounds of words, but the sounds do not make the words themselves. You are beginning to learn the body language that is part of the Yautja language, and are beginning to translate, instead of just trying to match sounds. This is good progress." She thought about it, then inclined her head in acknowledgment of the compliment.

"Yes, Yautja females hunt, but rarely. They usually only hunt when it is necessary, or for protection. They are content to be in charge of everything while we males are off risking getting killed." She nodded.

"Do you have names?", she asked, almost timidly. The Yautja looked at each other, then spoke in turn, but all her translator gave her was -------'s. She cursed whoever made it. "The translator can't handle the words."

"You called the unblooded Yautja 'asshole', what do you call us when you think of us?" asked the Second, curiously.

"You I think of as 'Second', because that's what you do. Him", gesturing to the hunter, "I just thought of as 'hunter'. The Elder and the healer I think of as those words." She thought for a second, then turned slightly to the hunter. "If you are the weaponsmaster, a better name for you would be something like 'Blade'. Something like 'best at unarmed hunting' would be way too long." She grinned under her mask, but the amusement carried in her words, and both Yautja growled laughter.

"When the group hunts together, it would be best if you have thought of names to call each of us. Calling out 'hunter' would be confusing. 'Blade' is sufficient, if it helps you.", the hunter stated. She inclined her head in gratitude, as the Second stood.

"We still have a trophy for you to clean, young blood. Since the night is still far from over, I think after that it is time for you to learn." She looked up at him. "You fight well, but you are still raw and undisciplined. There is the matter of ducking to avoid the star we have yet to address." She winced, she wasn't going to live that one down it seemed.

"And I wish to see how you use those wrist blades in combat.", Blade added. She looked to both of them in confusion, and Blade stood, then reached down one hand and lifted her to her feet.

"You are blooded now. It is time for you to train.", he said in a tone that discouraged disagreement.

She sighed. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

**Embolium v - Condemnant quod non intellegunt**

"I'm through with your monster stories! If I wanted fantasy, I'd steal a newsfeed from Inside Edition! Get back out there and give me real reporting, or I'll get a real reporter. Got it?" The cellphone buzzed in her ear as her produced hung up, and she threw it onto the dashboard of the van furiously. He looked across at her sadly, shaking his head.

"I keep telling you, Kyl ..." She cut him off angrily, opening the door and stepping out of the van.

"And I keep telling you to mind your own damned business!" She slammed the door, leaving him sitting there alone. He sighed deeply and reached down beside him to grab his new camera before opening his own door. She was already there, placing one hand on the door frame and the other on the side of the van, blocking him. "You know what we saw as well as I do, and denying it won't make it go away."

"No, but trying to tell everyone about it when we don't have any proof will make _something_ go away. Our jobs, for instance." She made a sound of disgust and spun on one heel, but he reached out and grabbed her by the arm before she could step away. "I'm serious, Kylie. They'll fire the pair of us on this. Let's just drop it." She turned back to him, her voice dripping venom.

"I am not going to drop it! We can get the proof, all we have to do is find the bitch in black! Once we have her, those monsters will do what we tell them to, and we'll get all the footage we need." He shook his head again.

"She'll kill us, or they will, or those black things will, girl. That or your mob friends will." She flinched and looked at him with her mouth open. "What, you think I'm dumb or something? I was coming to pick you up and I saw who was dropping you back home." She gave him a furious glare.

"Hey, who said the bitch could be the conscience of the world? They might be mobsters, but they ain't running around with freaking aliens murdering people!", she near screamed at him.

"No, they seem to do that pretty well all on their own without needing any help, or had you forgotten?", he retorted hotly.

"I'll tell you one more time, mind your own business", she warned ominously. He shrugged.

"It's on your head, girl. Just don't think about dragging me into this mess. You want to go monster hunting, be my guest." He looked at her, both of them trying to stare the other down, but she broke first, turning and stalking off through the small crowd that had gathered at the scene towards the police cordon. He pulled the camera up onto his shoulder as he followed. He found her cornering a frazzled looking cop, the shift supervisor he guessed from the uniform's rank tabs, and he turned the camera on as he caught the tail end of the conversation.

"... fifteen, maybe sixteen. I don't know yet for sure, they're still clearing the building." She nodded, her professional face back in place as she tried to get more information out of the cop than he wanted to tell her.

"And you say they were all mutilated the same way the other murder victims have been?" He hadn't said anything of the sort, but he fell for the ploy anyway and nodded. "Do you have any idea who's behind this yet? Is this a turf war?" He looked at her as if she was insane.

"Lady, I don't know shit about who's doing it, but whoever it is is one sick mother ..." He tried to get his emotions under control before he continued. "Look, All I know is a couple of kids got themselves carved up, along with a handful of junkie whores and their johns, as well as the guys running this place, OK? You want to give me a chance to find out myself before you start asking me questions?" She turned on her reporter's smile, and the cop grumbled as he made his way back under the yellow police tape. She turned back to the cameraman.

"If I did that he'd have prepared statements and cover-ups and bullshit trying to hide everything. You get that last bit on tape?" He nodded, as she shook herself and reached for the microphone he carried clipped to the side of the camera. "Fine, let's give the wonderful viewing audience tonight's dose of reality TV."

* * *

**Embolium vi - Lupus in fabula**

He watched from an adjacent rooftop as the two Yautja put her through her paces. Time and again she was knocked down, or sent flying through the air, but each time she got back up and threw herself into the practice. He watched with interest the techniques both of them used in their training, they both were proficient and she was learning quickly. He laughed to himself as the Second tried in vain to break her of the habit of ducking as her thrown weapons came back to her – he'd given up trying to teach her to catch them after a fruitless week of trying, even after he had created a blunted version for her to practice with. 

He had watched as the weaponsmaster had shown her how to clean the trophy she had taken, using tools attached to her armor she had once sworn to him she wouldn't need. Although her mask covered her features, he could tell that she was proud when she held up the cleaned _kainde amedha_ skull, running her hand down the length of bone. He had heard her scream of victory from the underground structure, although he had not been able to enter it to witness the fight for fear that his presence would have been noticed. She was progressing nicely.

He was proud when she managed to score glancing hits on the weaponsmaster with her wrist blades, but was unsurprised when she was able to score more of the minor cuts on him when using the two long bladed knives she carried. She would always be more comfortable using those than the Yautja blades mounted to the armored vambraces on her forearms, and when he had trained with her, she had managed to use them to good effect. He noted that neither of the two Yautja was content to let her stick with her favorite weapons, but instead had her try all of the ones she carried at various stages.

"I thought I would find you here." He turned at the voice, then turned back to resume his watching as the Elder came up beside him and crouched down. They watched together for a few minutes, before the Elder spoke again.

"You have done well training her so far." He bowed his head in acknowledgment.

"And your hunters are making a good start to improving on it further." It was the Elder's turn to bow his head.

"They are the best I have with me. I thought I would have difficulty persuading them all to accept her in this hunt, but after seeing her return with a _kainde amedha_ trophy, and hearing the weaponsmaster say he would hunt with her again, the others seem to be willing to accept their judgment, for now."

"One does not", he pointed out. The Elder snorted.

"That one is a fool, he has learned nothing of the hunt beyond the kill. _She_ knows more of the hunt, and honor, than he ever will." The Elder looked at him and cocked his head. "Did she really promise to kill you when she was still a child?" He laughed.

"She did, several times. It was many cycles before she realized she was not yet ready and stopped trying to."

They paused, watching as the weaponsmaster sent her flying again with a sweep of its feet, before leaping over her and punching downwards, the tip of his wristblades stopping just short of slicing into her throat. He stepped backwards and lifted her to her feet, and they resumed their positions before starting to fight again.

"You should mark her properly", he surprised the Elder with the idea.

"I had thought of that. I was not sure how you would view it, however."

"She has earned the mark many times over. She looks like _pyode amedha_, but mentally she is more Yautja than human. The longer she stays in proximity to Yautja, the more pronounced the difference will become."

"Then you should mark her, as her teacher." He growled a negative.

"She would not accept it from me, I do not think." The Elder nodded in understanding, but after a moment offered his opinion.

"I think you may be incorrect, I think she would consider it a great honor and sign of her progress." He thought about that for several minutes.

"We shall see. She has yet to survive this hunt. As good as she has become, she will be facing a _kainde amedha_ queen." The Elder nodded again, and the two of them watched until they saw her raise her hands in exhaustion, and the Second called a halt to the training for the moment. He rose to leave, and the Elder rose with him before clasping a hand to his shoulder. As he returned the gesture, genuine warmth and friendship between the two, the Elder spoke.

"She will be worthy prey when the time comes."

"Yes. But that time is not yet."

* * *

**Embolium vii - De minimis non curat praetor**

The quiet was a welcome respite from the noise of the restaurant outside, Ito came here often to reflect and meditate. The soundproofing wasn't exactly designed for that purpose, but he was never one to pass up the side benefit his precautions against eavesdropping brought. He was sitting cross legged on the floor, his hands clasped comfortably in his lap, eyes closed lightly, but his mind was as focused as ever. Even when trying to relax, he never stopped planning and scheming.

He heard the door to the room open, then close again, but he didn't bother to look. Outside were half a dozen of his best men, hand picked for their ability to protect him, they would give their lives without hesitation for him if the situation demanded it. Anyone who could get past them was either supposed to be here, or was so good he wouldn't stand a chance anyway, so he remained relaxed. He noted that whoever it was stopped a respectful distance away before sitting on the ground, but he continued working through the problem he had been thinking about in his head for a few minutes more.

Eventually, he opened his eyes and looked across at the man who had entered, who didn't seem to have moved once while his boss made him wait.

"It went well?", he asked. He already knew the answer, if anything had gone wrong the man wouldn't be here in the first place, but he hadn't reached the level he was at by making assumptions, even sure things.

"Yes. We were in and out before anyone noticed. We left the bodies as you instructed." Ito nodded thoughtfully.

"Good, it will simply look like another attack by our mysterious enemy." He looked up as the man shook his head. "You disagree?"

"It will look like another attack because of how it was carried out, yes. But there is a complication. Ours was the only attack tonight, nowhere else was hit. And as far as I can tell, nowhere was hit last night either."

"That is a complication, yes. The only way to avoid suspicion is if the attacks continue to seem random. If Issoti starts seeing only those establishments that are controlled by the Mafia are being attacked, we may lose the deniability." He thought for several long minutes, the man waiting patiently once more as Ito worked his way through the problem.

"Continue as planned. If there are further quiet periods without our own establishments being attacked, I expect you to make sure that there is sufficient evidence created to deflect suspicion from us." The man nodded.

"That will mean killing many more of our own people."

"Casualties are unfortunate, but to be expected. Do you forsee any difficulties with the members of your team with such a task?" The man shook his head.

"I hand-picked them all, they won't be a problem. They know where their loyalties lie."

"_I'm sure they do, but I wonder if they lie where I want them to?"_ Ito thought to himself, but instead replied in an offhand tone, "Good. We do not need any further complications. I leave the details to you."

"And Wen's establishments?" Ito smiled thinly.

"Those can be left alone. If Issoti transfers his suspicions onto Wen, I can exploit that in the future just as easily", Ito mused half to himself. He looked up at the man.

"Go, you and your team get rest. You will be working again tomorrow night."


	15. Nemo me impune lacessit

**Nemo me impune lacessit**

She entered the room cautiously, straining everything she had to make sure the coast was clear. She slowly made her way around obstacles, the scene in front of her eyes an eerie subdued dark red to black, picking up no heat signatures or thermal blooms. It had obviously been some time since this place was occupied, many hours at least. She completed her sweep, but found no signs of life anywhere.

She sighed with relief, disconnecting her mask from the armor she wore and lifting it away until the pressure released and the mask came free in her hands. She blinked several times then reached across to the dimmer switch on the wall and brought it up low, waiting for her eyes to adjust back to normal before bringing the lights up to full, then falling backwards onto the bed in exhaustion.

"_She finally went home!"_, she thought to herself in relieved exasperation. She spent the next few minutes staring at the ceiling and trying to relax her tired and very aching body, idly noticing that a few more of the luminescent stars and planets she'd stuck up there years ago had begun to peel away. With a groan, she rolled over and sat up, and began to remove her armor, each movement reminding her she'd quite resoundingly had the crap beaten out of her for most of the night.

She pushed the armor plates to one side once it was all removed, and stumbled her way into the shower, running it very hot and full blast to try and get some benefit from the massaging shower head as seen on TV.

_Yeah right_.

By the time she was finished, she was pruned, pinker than a lobster, and still sore all over, but at least she felt clean. Wrapping herself in a towel, she walked back into the bedroom, using a small hand towel to rub the moisture from her braids, and sat down heavily on the bed again. She looked at her armor with distaste. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep, she had more sore places than she could count, both from her armor chafing her and the impacts she'd taken, and was exhausted from her efforts. Both the Second and Blade had tested her to her limits and beyond.

But sleep would have to wait. she had specific instructions to carry out first. She looked to the small container she had brought back with her, then with a resigned sigh, headed to the kitchen to grab one of the dinner knifes from the drawer.

Once she was back on the bed, she opened the container and her eyes started to water at the fumes the contents gave off. She closed it up quickly, making sure she opened all the windows to the apartment before she tried to open it again. It still stunk like weeks-old roadkill skunk, but the fresh air kept most of it flowing, thankfully. She took one of the shoulder pieces of her armor, and began spreading some of the silvery goop the container held inside into the gouges the kainde amedha claws had made in the metal, before smoothing it off level with the rest of the surface.

Proper upkeep of her armor was her responsibility, she'd been told pointedly - then handed the equipment to meet it. Thankfully, that didn't extend to trying to make any sense out of the alien technology, and she'd sat patiently in one of the breaks they took during night comparing different unarmed combat moves with the weaponsmaster, while the Second busied himself behind her replacing the elements of her cloak that had been destroyed.

She was surprised at how many segments of her armor the hard meat had scored deep furrows into. Without the armor, she'd never have survived the fight, that was obvious – this amount of damage on bare skin would have left her dead in moments. The goop was a subtle contrast to the undamaged portions of the alien metal, slightly shinier and smoother. It had been explained that it was the same compound used to fashion the armor to begin with, and would match the color and strength once it had cured, by the time she went to hunt again the next night. Once she had coated and filled all of the damage, she happily replaced the lid on the container, then stood and moved to the closet.

She opened the closet door, hardly even noticing as the security device on the back wall scanned her eye to verify it was her, and stared at the array of weapons, lost in thought. She crouched down and opened the top drawer, looking at the container full of teeth, then back up at the wall, thinking about _it_. Her first full trophy, a _kainde amedha_ skull, hanging now in a Yautja's trophy vault, instead of here. In her closet. On the wall. Surrounded by the tools of a hunter.

Where it belonged.

As Blade had shown her how to use the enzyme spray to clean the skull, eating away at the dead tissue, she had been unable to stop from stroking _it_ gently as it had emerged from under the gloss black skin concealing the bone. She was still trying to process all her feelings about the night, and her understanding of this alien and frightening race, and part of her quailed from her own thoughts and emotions. Marisa had said that she couldn't lose her humanity, but at this point she wasn't sure – everything she had feared, everything that was intrinsically part of what the armor implied, seemed to be on the verge of coming true.

For a brief moment in the darkness of night, she had not been _pyode amedha_. She had been Yautja to her core. She had screamed her victory over the hard meat, and her subconscious had taken her trophy and placed it safely out of harm's way.

She reached back onto the bed and took her mask, her eyes drawn to the italicized and stylized TT mark the Elder had scribed there in alien acid. The mark of a blooded Yautja, a hunter. She had earned a privilege that as far as she knew no human had ever attained in the past. Even though this was temporary, an expedient so that the Elder would have use of another hunter against the _kainde amedha_ queen, she felt her heart trying to burst at the seams with pride at having been considered worthy of participating.

Her mind was whirling with the implications for the future the mark held, the burdens it placed on her. It bound her, for the moment, to the hunting party about that ship, to the Elder. She had no choice but to honor the mark, to behave, live, act, think, as the Yautja did. They would be relying on her skills, judged sufficient by their peers, to help in the coming days.

As she replaced the armor carefully in the bottom drawer of the closet, taking care not to disturb the already hardening goop, she tried to look on it as putting away that part of her that scared her, the hunter she was becoming, had already become. When she closed the door, she tried to visualize the hunter within her was now behind the door as well, that she was a "normal" human being once more. As she climbed wearily into bed, pulling the covers tight around and curling tightly into a ball, she hoped she had succeeded.

Sleep came hard for her.

-

* * *

-

She almost tore its head off in her rage. She caught herself just in time, and began flailing impotently in the air, the short arms close to her sides clenching and grasping while the longer arms from her shoulders pounded her fists into the floor and walls, dust raining down from creaking concrete that was never designed for such an onslaught.

_They have killed my children!_

Almost half of them had fallen in the night to the attacks of these creatures that intruded on the hive's nests. She was beginning to question the wisdom of spreading the hive out so soon, when they were so weak, but she had no choice. Most of her children born to the hosts they found near the hive were weak, and some died without explanation after birth, yet some few children, born of hosts found from further afield, thrived. If the hive was to survive, if she was to breed and rule, they needed more of these hosts from further out.

But those creatures! They attacked her children, attacked the eggs. She had heard the screams of pain and anger from those she had set to explore, to find new hosts, as they were set upon and killed. She had felt their death throes, as if they had been her own. She had screamed into the darkness, slamming the ridge of bone that fanned out from behind her head into the ceiling of the chamber they had selected to be hers. And they had died.

_My children!_

Burning inside her now, stronger than the need to grow the hive, was the desire for vengeance. They had slaughtered her offspring, and they would pay, pay dearly for that crime. They would make excellent hosts, they would atone for their deeds by replacing those they had taken from her.

She looked down on the drone in front of her, laying where the force of her tantrum had thrown it in fear for its existence. She sent it soothing emotions, calming it, until it stopped trembling, before she gave it the instruction to pass to the hive.

_Find them._

She would have her vengeance on them all.

-

* * *

-

The last rays of daylight shining through the open window, flashing across her face as the breeze stirred the curtains, woke her. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and what time it was, but when her brain made the connection between the three states – awake, in bed, late, she sighed. She felt like rolling over, curling up with the covers over her head, and telling the world to go away, she was taking the night off, but she knew that the Second and Blade would be arriving shortly for another night's hunting, and more training.

Briefly she wondered about the two Yautja. Throughout the night as they had bruised and battered her about, they had seemed genuinely to want to teach her. Their compliments had been grudging, but she took an inner sense of pride for those few compliments, knowing that she had earned them. But she didn't understand why they had done it. It was the same with the night the Elder had required her to take him and the Second to the places she hunted, the night they had given her a full array of equipment – what she felt at the beginning was her being tested ended with her feeling she was being taught, too.

Part of her rationalized it away as simply being that she would be hunting with them, they had a vested interest in her being as good as possible, their lives might depend on it. Another part of her rationalized it away as being a mark of respect for her having been successful in hunting _kainde amedha_. Whatever the reason, she couldn't understand why she was being treated, if not as Yautja, but at the least far beyond how Yautja normally treated _pyode amedha_. In some ways, not even her trainer had acted like this towards her.

"Young blood" they called her. Acknowledgment, certainly. Acceptance? She wasn't sure. Her trainer had only ever called her 'human', and she'd been content with that. She intended to kill him, or die in the attempt, although as the years had gone on she'd almost forgotten why, so wrapped up in learning she'd become, so much of the Yautja codes she'd learned of and started to believe in. Some of them had never made sense to her, not on a visceral level, until the past twenty-four hours. Until she'd screamed exultantly. Until she'd taken a trophy.

Was this the reason he kept saying she wasn't ready? Had she been blocking herself from understanding because of her own fears? She startled herself with the sudden realization that she wasn't sure she _wanted_ to kill him any more.

She wanted to _hunt_ him.

She shook her head and swung herself out of bed. Now wasn't the time to start having deep and meaningful discussions with herself about the meaning of life. That needed at least two cups of coffee.

-

In the end, it took six cups of coffee, another shower, and two slices of pizza of dubious heritage for her to even begin to feel like facing the world again tonight. She changed into gym clothes, noting with distaste that she was going to have to head down to the laundry room soon if she wanted any clean clothes to wear, and began trying to loosen up, working out some of the aches and pains. She was in the middle of bending over at the waist, grasping the back of her legs and pulling, when she heard a key in the door, before it opened and Marisa walked in, carrying a bag of groceries.

"Marisa, what are you doing?" she asked, straightening up.

"I figured you didn't have a chance to get any shopping done today, babydoll." Marisa forestalled the objection she knew her friend was going to make. "I know, it's dangerous for me to be here, I promise to be gone before they show up, OK?" She just shook her head and walked over to hug her friend, trying not to squash the contents of the bag.

"Thank you hon. I don't even remember what's in the fridge, and I don't think I've had anything decent to eat in a few days." Marisa smiled at her, and headed off to the kitchen to put the groceries away. As she was opening and closing closets, trying to determine where everything was supposed to go, she looked over as her friend started toweling the sweat off .

"How did it go last night?", she called out, easily. Her friend came over to the kitchen and sat at the countertop on a high stool, dropping the towel into the brimming laundry basket in the bathroom on the way. She looked off into space before she finally answered.

"You mean other than the fact I got banged up again?" They grinned at each other. Marisa nodded as she came around the counter to sit next to her friend, noticing the new blue line across her friend's side. She pointed at it and giggled.

"At this rate, you're going to end up looking like a Smurf, babydoll." She looked at Marisa, not comprehending for a moment, then down at where she was pointing to, and she cracked up, visions of a Yautja Smurf running through her head. After a few minutes she caught her breath again, and thumped Marisa on the shoulder playfully.

"You are bad, you know that?" Marisa beamed brightly.

"Thank you! So, what happened?"

"We got ambushed, pretty much. It got kind of frantic for a while, but we made it through." She wasn't ready to try to explain the aftermath to Marisa, not yet. She was still trying to sort through it herself. "The Elder had me spend time with the Second and Blade doing more training." She grinned ruefully. "I ended up getting beat up more by them than in the fight." Marisa just stared.

"I didn't understand a word of that, babydoll. Who's Blade?" She laughed softly.

"Remember the hunter that came with the Second to pick me up last night?" Marisa nodded. "That's Blade. I can't actually pronounce his name, and the translator didn't come up with anything, so I chose that name for him to make it easier."

"Why Bla ... wait a minute ... '_him_'? I thought you said they don't have sex!" She laughed.

"No, I said I don't know if they have genders, or if they can mate with humans. I didn't know myself until last night!" She grinned mischievously. "I'm pretty sure they can have sex though." Marisa eyed her friend suspiciously. "Where else would the little predlets come from?" It was Marisa's turn to thump her friend's shoulder.

"Soooooo, how did the subject come up, hmm?" She grinned.

"Pretty much the same way, the second was telling me about Blade being the ship's weaponsmaster and the best unarmed combat hunter there is, and he called him 'him'. I reacted the same way you did, just without thinking the same things." Marisa blinked innocently, a 'who, me?' look on her face. "After the hunt last night, they've started opening up to me a lot more." She nodded, then got a serious look on her face.

"Babydoll? Did you really have to kill them all?" She blinked and looked at Marisa. "It wasn't their fault they were there, they can't help the way they live. They were junkies, it's not like they have a choice." She couldn't believe she was hearing this.

"Marisa, they're stone cold killers, given the chance they'd take over the entire city and turn it into one huge graveyard." She shook her head.

"That's not true, babydoll. I'm not saying you were wrong or anything, I know you, you wouldn't have done it without a good reason. I just don't understand what the reason is." Marisa reached a hand out and touched her friend gently on the shoulder, but she twisted away angrily.

"They're _kainde amedha_, Marisa. Hard meat. That's all the reason anyone needs! They kill anything alive to be hosts for their ... what?" Marisa was shaking her head slowly.

"I don't mean the candy things, babydoll. I'm talking about the hookers and those teenagers." She looked at Marisa in shock.

"Huh?"

"The mob place you hit last night." She shook her head.

"Hon, I haven't hunted a mob place for three nights, the Elder's drafted me on the hunt for the _kainde amedha_ nest and their queen. I haven't had _time_ to hit mob places."

"Tell her what you were doing last night.", the Second's voice came from the balcony doorway. Both of them turned quickly, to see the Second and Blade turn off their cloaks, but they hesitated at the doorway. She looked at them and cocked her head to one side. "May we enter?" Blade asked. She blinked in surprise, before nodding, and they stepped inside, the Second closing the door behind them. Marisa looked at them then to her friend.

"The Second told me to tell you I was with them last night. After the battle with the _kainde amedha_, we met up with the rest of the Yautja and the Elder from the ship." She looked to the Second quickly, who nodded his head, understanding her request. "The Elder blooded me, marked me as a hunter, at least until the hard meat are gone, and then they were with me training for the rest of the night." Marisa nodded slowly, tears forming in her eyes. "Where do you get this idea I killed innocents, hon? _What_ hookers?"

"It was all over the news today babydoll, a mob house got hit last night, and everyone inside was killed, seventeen people. Whoever did it killed a bunch of teenagers that the cops figure were there trying to sell stolen stuff and buy drugs, and the prostitutes and customers too." She looked at her friend. "The reporters were all saying that they were killed the same way _you_ do, babydoll, the knife in the back of the neck?" She blinked and sat back heavily, catching the countertop for support.

"Another hunter?", Blade asked. She thought for a minute then shook her head.

"What are the chances of there being another one out there that's trained by Yautja, that picks the _same_ way of taking trophies I did?" She looked at Marisa. "Did the news reports say anything about teeth being taken?" She shook her head negatively, and her friend breathed a sigh of relief. "That might mean it's just a copycat, but it still doesn't make sense, why kill the hookers and the kids?", she asked. Marisa could only look on helplessly and shrugged.

"When I heard about their necks being cut open, I thought it was you. I'm sorry babydoll." She reached over and took Marisa's hands in her own.

"There's nothing to be sorry for hon. If someone's copying what I've been doing, then how could you have known?" She turned and looked to the Second and Blade, her voice turning to steel. "I want to have words with whoever did this, so I can explain to them the difference between prey and innocents." Marisa looked at her friend, a chill traveling down her spine.

"What will that accomplish, babydoll." Her friend turned back to her.

"Because then they'll understand when I hunt them down and mount their skulls on my wall."

-

* * *

-

"Ahh, Miss McCullough, I am glad you could join me." She shook off the hand of the balding man and glared at him. He smiled tolerantly, holding up a small cassette recorder and pressing the 'play' button. Her face went chalk white as she heard her own voice coming out of the speaker.

_"... We can get the proof, all we have to do is find the bitch in black! Once we have her, those monsters will do what we tell them to ..."_

Ito clicked off the tape recorder, as she started to tremble violently. He gestured to the balding man, who brought a chair around and gently pressed down on the reporter's shoulders until she sat. He took up a station just behind and beside her, but she hardly noticed. She stared at the tape recorder in horror, then up at Ito, who moved to sit on the edge of the table just in front of her.

"It pains me to think that you may have been holding back information, Miss McCullough, a great deal. Whilst I am sure that it was merely an oversight on your part, my associate disagrees." Ito nodded at the man, and she instinctively looked up, feeling the looming presence behind her, as Ito continued, as if musing. "I must admit, I am having a hard time persuading him that he should let you live. You see, we tend to see such things as a betrayal of our trust, and I am sure that someone with your extensive experience reporting on our little ... community ... is aware of what that means." She looked at Ito again, a low moan starting to build in her throat. He let her panic for a minute.

"Please, don't be alarmed, Miss McCullough. I believe that if you were to reveal the information that you omitted to reveal when we spoke last, that would go a long way towards atoning for your oversight." She cursed herself, trying to control her fear. They wouldn't dare kill her would they? The soft tone he used scared her more than the guy stood behind her could. She could hear the silky smooth menace behind the voice, and realized too late just how far in over her head she had become. Her pride demanded one last opportunity to ruin her entire day, however.

"And if I tell you, how do I know you'll let me go?" Ito's smile tightened, and his voice turned to ice.

"You know that we will allow you to leave because unlike you we keep our promises, Miss McCullough." She nodded hurriedly.

"I'll tell you everything then." All at once, Ito's smile and demeanor changed once more to the urbane oriental businessman.

"Then let us begin with this 'bitch in black', shall we?"

She spent several hours, going over everything she knew, or thought she knew. She told them the full story of the attack and what they had seen on the camera's monitor, and of her plans to capture the woman in black. Once Ito had drained her on that subject, he took advantage of her terror and asked her about several other subjects to do with her reporting. Once he was satisfied, he stood up, and reached across the table to draw something towards the edge closest to her.

"Thank you Miss McCullough, the information you have provided will be of use to us." She was eying the table and the trembling started again.

"Wait, I thought you said you'd let me go? That if I told you everything I knew I'd make up for my mistake!" Ito chuckled, echoed by the man stood behind her as she was lifted to her feet and pushed gently towards the table.

"Yes Miss McCullough, I did, and as I said, we keep our word. However, I said it would only go so far towards atoning for your error. Luckily for you, we have a custom that allows you to finish paying for it." She looked down at the table in horror as he lifted a white linen cloth away, uncovering the tray he had repositioned to reveal the short straight dagger lying atop a small square of cotton, and the muslin strips beside it.

Ito smiled.

"Welcome to the family, Miss McCullough."


	16. Naturalia non sunt turpia

**Naturalia non sunt turpia**

She crouched down and ran her fingertips through the slime gingerly, before holding her hand up and showing her two companions.

"They've been here, but I can't tell how recently." Blade stepped over and took hold of her wrist as he looked at the mucous strands beginning to drip slowly off her hand back to the ground.

"Recently. It has only just begun to solidify." She nodded as he let go of her wrist, and flicked the remnants of _kainde amedha_ saliva onto the ground before wiping her hand in the dirt. She flipped the protective shield covering the computer mounted on the front of her thigh up, pressing a combination of keys to bring a hologram up in front of her, then zooming the display in on their location to document their latest find. She shook her head as she stared at the display for a moment, then the hologram shimmered and disappeared as she closed the cover and stood.

It had been two days since they had attacked the garage where the eggs had been. Two nights of hunting, and two nights with no results. Again, the Elder had paired her off with the Second and Blade, and they were sweeping an area away from her usual hunting grounds, traveling along the rooftops to make detection less likely when they had come across the slime.

"This isn't making any sense", she muttered. Blade growled a query, and she looked up at him. "They're on the move, we keep finding where they've _been_, but we're not finding _them_."

"Neither have any of the other hunters", the Second pointed out, joining them. The two Yautja had grown to enjoy her company, and her insights. She had understood immediately that night the reasoning behind their request for permission to enter her nest, that her status now meant that they would accord her respect under the strict codes the Yautja lived by. Each night, once they had finished their search, they had tested her skills further, and all three would retire in the morning needing the healing effects of the blue liquid in their medical kits.

"That's my point. _None_ of have. By now this area should be crawling with _kainde amedha_, but it isn't." She shook her head, staring at the puddle of saliva on the ground helplessly. "They're up to something", she said eventually. Both Yautja cocked their heads. "We took out, what, nine the other night? How many did the others kill?"

"Another five, but those were chance encounters", Blade responded in his usual short manner. The usually quiet weaponsmaster had been especially hard on her in the training sessions, criticizing most all of her techniques as being sloppy. He had pointed out that she had been hunting _pyode amedha_ almost exclusively – the techniques might work against such prey, but against a Yautja she would need to be much tighter in how she fought. That hadn't prevented him from demanding she teach him some of the tricks she had developed herself, though, and often they had ended crouched down together comparing notes, as he returned her instruction with tricks of his own.

"We had the largest single group, but we were attacking an egg storage site, so it is reasonable that it would have had more guarding it", the Second added. "What could they be up to?" She shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe we hit them harder than we thought, or got closer to the nest than we realize, and they're looking to relocate." She slammed her hand into the ground in frustration, kicking up a small spray of dirt and stones. The attacks by the copycats had continued, and escalated, with more places being hit, and she burned with the desire to find those responsible, but that was a minor issue as far as the Elder was concerned, he had instructed her to concentrate on the bigger problem – the _kainde amedha_ and their queen.

"Are you that eager to earn another trophy?", asked a voice from somewhere behind her.

"I'm that eager to figure out what they're ...", she responded almost absently but stopped, her voice trailing off. Her heartbeat quickened and she started to breathe faster, her hand straying to the spear clipped to her right thigh, but the two Yautja with her simply stood and took a few steps back. She closed her eyes under her mask, willing her fears down.

"Now?", she asked quietly, amazed at how steady her voice came out. A laugh, deep and growling. Yautja.

"Not yet." She stayed crouched, looking ahead still, but her hand relaxed from the spear shaft.

"Do you have any idea how much I loathe those words?" A pause, then

"Yes."

She stood and turned slowly, and crossed her hands across her chest as a Yautja emerged from the air, turning its cloak off. The Second and Blade both inclined their heads in respectful greeting. Tall, his body crisscrossed with a large number of deep, ugly scars, the Yautja returned the nod while stepping closer to her. He put a claw under her chin and tilted her face up, the other tracing the mark scribed in the forehead of her mask. She stiffened slightly, but remained in position while he did so. After a moment, he released her head, then stepped back and nodded to her. She let her hands fall to her sides and looked at him, as the Second and Blade came up and stood either side of her.

"I forgot to thank you for saving my life the other night." He inclined his head towards her, then crouched, motioning to the three of them to join him. As they crouched down, he looked at her.

"I am glad to see you are finally using the armor you earned, although", he motioned to the weapon over her shoulder, "I see you have gained additional pieces."

"It's a loan, until this hunt is complete." He nodded.

"Honored Elder", the Second began, "you are the one who has been training this _pyode amedha_?" He growled an affirmative, still looking at her.

"As much as she has allowed me to, yes." She looked at him sharply.

"_Allowed_ you to?", her voice rose, but a look from the Second made her hold her tongue, and she inclined her head apologetically as her trainer continued.

"As you can see, we still have some work to do on the subject of manners", he said lightly, to the clicking laughter of both Yautja. He looked at her again, and she could feel his gaze piercing past her mask as it always seemed to do.

The two Yautja had seen the stranger approach quietly and cloaked, but recognized the body language as non-hostile, at least towards them. When she had reacted to this new Yautja's voice, they had both realized who he must be, and had stepped out of the way to give them room, in case this was the time when he would hunt her. The Second had been relieved when the Elder had confirmed that she wasn't ready yet, as he didn't believe she was at the stage where she would have much chance against an experienced Yautja. Both of them watched curiously while the Elder spoke almost compassionately with her.

"You did well earning the mark. If it means anything, I was proud." She blinked ... He was _proud_? She took a moment to try and recover from the shock of his words, settling simply for inclining her head acknowledging him. The group was silent for a few minutes, and she finally collected herself.

"So why are you here?", she asked him, forcing herself to ask casually.

"I decided it was time to check on your progress and perhaps train you further." She cocked her head to one side.

"How am I doing?" She cringed inwardly, at his blunt response.

"When I arrived, I saw little improvement since last time." She growled an affirmative. Over the past two days she had been using the limited Yautja vocabulary she knew, and was capable of producing with human vocal cords, more and more, without thinking. She had even answered a question from Marisa earlier in the evening during a telephone call with a Yautja-like growl. At the same time, she had been understanding more without needing to "read" the words that the translator built into her mask projected in front of her eyes.

The way he had responded struck her, and she thought for a minute before asking her next question.

"And now?" He purred gently in pleasure at her understanding.

"A great deal of improvement." She was about to say something more when he continued. "You still will not survive hunting the queen." She blinked. He had said that so calmly that she had almost missed the meaning.

"Why not?" She asked eventually, her companions listening intently to his answer.

"You have a decision to make. You are still making the same mistake you have done from the beginning." She cocked her head to one side and listened.

"You try to being Yautja, or you try to be human. You will never survive hunting the queen, or be ready to hunt, until you stop trying to be either of those things." She looked at him dumbfounded, but both the Second and Blade nodded in understanding, many things becoming clear to them.

"I don't understand."

"You separate the two parts of you. You are human, yet you have received Yautja training, have adopted Yautja outlooks and practices. You try to be one, or the other, at different times."

He had decided it was time to speak with her when he had heard she was finally using the armor and had found out about the translator. Until that point, he had been forced to use loop recordings exclusively. He hadn't told her about the translator, a device he had taken as a trophy hunting on another world, even though it would have made things much easier for him, because he had been trying to force her to discover things on her own, as part of training her. Her obstinacy with regards to using the armor he had given her had been frustrating, and he was enjoying his ability to speak clearly with her now. It was time for him to break her out of her denial.

"It is for you to take your place as you, who and what you are. A synthesis of the two. Your worth as prey is for your uniqueness. You can never be Yautja, but you are not really _pyode amedha_ any more either."

"You refused for so long to wear the armor, and only now wear it because it is necessary, because the Elder you hunt with demanded it of you. Every piece I created for you was given as you reached a symbolic point in your training with me, and in exploring each piece you would have discovered a new part of yourself. By refusing to do so, you have held yourself back, slowed down your training." He clicked a disappointed and frustrated noise that didn't translate.

"If you had accepted the armor as you earned it, you would have been ready for the hunt many planetary cycles ago." She stiffened in surprise. "Even now, you simply _use_ it, you do not explore the limits, or understand the lesson you were given in the act that earned you each piece." The Elder cocked his head to one side.

"If you were still hunting humans during this hunt, would you do so wearing the armor?", he asked her, almost gently. She didn't reply, but she knew the answer, they all did. She wouldn't.

"The armor does not make you more of a Yautja, or less of a human. It is simply symbolic expression of who, of what, you are inside." He fell silent, watching her closely as she absorbed this new information. She would have been ready long ago, if she'd worn the armor? A thought came to her.

"My friend says that you want to hunt me because of my humanity." He growled a soft laugh.

"She is perceptive, but incorrect. You will be the challenge I seek when you accept your self and embrace it. I wish to hunt you because of what you are, when you are both, yet neither. It does not mean surrendering your humanity, it is a step beyond it." He leaned forwards and rapped the knuckles of one clawed hand against the shoulder plates of her armor.

"This is yours. It is Yautja armor, worn by a human. Find the point between the two worlds that is yours, and take hold of it. Make it your own." He rocked back from her, pointing to the mark scored across the forehead of her mask.

"You are blooded, you earned the mark hunting _kainde amedha_. It is a Yautja tradition, a Yautja practice, yet you only wear it on your armor, the Yautja part of you. You _cannot_ keep the two separate. You can only be complete, and have a chance against the queen, when you realize this."

"_That_ is what I have been attempting to teach you these many years. Each time you have come close, you have run away from it. You think you are running away from losing your humanity, but that is not the case. This is why I say 'as much as you allow me to'. Have faith in yourself. Your friend does, she accepts you. Why can you not accept yourself yet?" She was a long time in answering.

"Because it scares me, what I might become, what I might do", she almost whispered, and the three Yautja could sense her fear.

"You can not run from your nature for ever. And you can not control it until you embrace it."

"I can't hunt just any humans!" she exclaimed, plaintively. His response was short and blunt.

"Until you can, you will not be ready."

"Then I'll never be ready!" She near screamed at him, before leaping up and sprinting away from them across the rooftop. As she dropped off the end to a lower roof beyond, the Second made as if to follow her, but Blade held up a hand to stop him, looking to the Elder.

"Let me speak with her." He looked at her, as the Second crouched again, wondering what the weaponsmaster had in mind. After a moment, her trainer inclined his head, growling an affirmative.

"She will be returning to her nest." Blade nodded, and in moments was cloaked and gone.

-

He found the balcony window wide open as he turned off his cloak, spotting a human inside the main chamber of the hunter's nest – her friend. Tentatively he growled, and she spun to face him. He was taken aback as she strode towards him, he could feel the anger radiating from her in waves as palpable to him as the increased heat signature his eyes showed him .

"What did you do to her?" the human demanded. He braced himself as he saw her move as if she would attack him, but she calmed herself visibly, then shrunk in on herself. He recognized the shaking of her body as being a human expression of sadness they called "sobbing", and he searched the memory of his loop recordings.

"Can I come in?" "We need to talk." He watched her jump slightly, startled. They hadn't used the loop recordings often since the hunter had begun using the translator. She thought for a moment, then, resigned, motioned with her arm. Taking this as assent he stepped inside.

His hearing could detect the sound of the hunter crying from behind the closed door to her sleeping area, as he looked around the room. He could see her armor, scattered around the room as if thrown haphazardly and with force, as he followed the hunter's friend to the long seat. As she sat down heavily, he spotted the hunter's mask, thrown into a corner of the room, and thinking quickly he strode over to pick it up, then returned to the human and held it out to her.

"Take it" "We need to talk", he played on the loop. The human looked at him, then at the mask, and took it gingerly from him. Slowly she raised it to her face and he raised a hand to press it gently back, activating its electronics.

"Can you understand me?" he growled in his own language. She gasped as she saw the words scroll across her vision, laid on top of the disturbing heat-sensitive view the mask had activated with.

"Y ... y ... yes, I can. I can see what you say." He nodded, reaching down with a claw to lift one of her hands, pressing it against the mask. She understood immediately, and he was able to remove his own hand, before moving around in front of her and crouching down. Eye level to eye level, the two looked at each other. Eventually the human broke the silence.

"What did you do to her?"

"The Elder that has trained her came to speak with her." Her body went rigid. "She did not like some of the things she was told, and ran." The human nodded slowly to him.

* * *

He had watched her run from the Yautja, but he had been in the wrong place to follow her. When the weaponsmaster had left to find her, he had followed him instead, staying behind and using all the stealth he was able to. He was fortunate the weaponsmaster was so distracted, else he'd never have been able to stalk him. 

He had watched as the weaponsmaster had ascended to the human's nest, and reached a vantage point on a rooftop opposite in time to see him speaking with the human. She had removed her armor, but retained her mask, with its undeserved mark. Using the abilities of his own mask, he magnified the view, noting down the details of the human, so he would recognize her in the future. He had been so angered by the Elder's acts that he had forgotten to do even that basic thing when this human had defiled them in their council with her presence, but he was not going to make the same mistake again.

Once he had her characteristics committed to memory, he left as stealthily as he had arrived, leaving no trace behind. His inexperience, and ego, meant he didn't notice the shadow that followed him.

* * *

"She came back in here and took everything off, she was crying and screaming but she wouldn't talk to me. She threw her armor all over the room then locked herself in the bedroom, she hasn't come out and _still_ won't talk to me." He could tell the human's emotions were rising, her voice cracking. He made the same soothing clicking noises Yautja use on distraught children, but they didn't have any effect. 

"She refuses to accept", he tried. The human looked up at him.

"Refuses to accept what?"

"Herself. She wishes to deny what she is."

"What is she?" They both started as the bedroom door slammed wide open and she stood there, naked.

"So now you're trying to turn my friend against me? Get out! I didn't give you permission to enter!", she screamed at him. The human pulled the mask away from her face as the hunter stalked towards them, but he remained crouched. The human spoke, trying to placate the hunter.

"No babydoll, he's not. He only just got here." The hunter rounded on her friend.

"And he's leaving too!" The two humans stood there for a moment, facing off against each other.

"No, babydoll, he _isn't_." Both the hunter and Blade were surprised at the quiet determination in the human's voice. "I want to know what's going on, and you aren't telling me. So I'll find out from _him_ if I have to."

"No, Marisa, please. Don't." the hunter pleaded, beginning to cry. The human went around the seat to the hunter and held her gently as sobs wracked her body, stroking her forehead around the braids.

"You're my friend, babydoll. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on." She looked into Marisa's eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"He says I won't be ready until I learn to kill people, humans. Even if they're not mobsters." Marisa looked to Blade, who growled. She looked at him without understanding, but the hunter translated for her. "He said 'Yes'". He growled again, a touch of anger in the sound. That was _not_ what he had said. He gestured to the mask again. Marisa looked at her friend, the pleading in her eyes, then to the hunter. She lifted the mask, but handed it to her friend.

"Talk to him, babydoll. Find a way to get this sorted out."

"You don't understand!" she sobbed.

"No love, I don't. I don't _need_ to." Marisa took a deep breath. "It's not easy accepting things about yourself, love. I know how hard it gets. I know how hard someone can fight against themselves too", she continued in a wistful voice. Her friend looked at Marisa, she'd never heard her talk like this. Marisa grinned, sadly. "I know because I've been trying to deny something about me for years, babydoll." Her eyes widened as realization slammed into her, and Marisa smiled softly, a scared look in her eyes.

Impulsively, her friend hugged Marisa back, hard, Blade crouching on the other side of the sofa, forgotten and unnoticed, as both humans cried, even the soft hiss of escaping gas as he released his mask from his armor and removed it being unheard. He had no clue what they were discussing, but waited patiently. It took time for the two humans to separate, their hands dropping but fingers laced in each others hands.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner, hon?" the hunter asked. The human looked embarrassed.

"Remember what you were scared of when I saw the teeth in the closet?" She nodded. "Same thing babydoll. I was afraid of losing you because of being me." The hunter laughed, taking her friend by the shoulders and shaking her playfully.

"You stupid, impossible, silly, beautiful girl!" Marisa blushed, then her face took on a serious look again.

"We can talk about it later, if you want to?", she asked in a small voice. The hunter raised a hand to wipe away the tears from Marisa's face, then bent her head forwards before placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

"Yes love, I want to."

Marisa smiled hesitantly, then raised the mask, and looked over at Blade. "You need to fix your problem first, babydoll."

She looked as well, then sighed.

"Yeah, I guess I do." She took one of Marisa's hands in her own, and her fingers felt the supporting squeeze of her friend. They both moved back around the sofa and sat down, and she looked into Marisa's eyes.

"The Elder that trained me said that I was trying to be two things – Yautja, or human. He said that I wouldn't survive hunting the _kainde amedha_ queen until I learned to accept that I am both of those things, and neither." Blade growled an assent, nodding as he did so, and Marisa nodded in gratitude at his confirmation.

"Why can't you, babydoll?", she asked.

"You don't know what it feels like, hon. I felt it. When we hunted _kainde amedha_, and I took a trophy."

"I know, I saw you when you came home, remember? You were different, like you'd had a thousand orgasms." She laughed, trust Marisa to come up with such an analogy. Even in the midst of emotional meltdown by both of them, she still was able to maintain the personality that she loved in her friend. Blade growled something, and indicated Marisa place the mask against her face. Looking quickly at her friend, and seeing the slight nod she gave, she complied.

"She finally allowed the hunter within her to emerge. It has scared her that she could feel that way, her understanding that it is not the kill that created the feelings, but it was the hunt itself." Marisa nodded and removed the mask, repeating Blade's words to her friend, who thought about it for a minute.

"He's right, I guess." They were silent again, while Marisa tried to come up with a way to say what she was thinking without annoying her friend. Eventually, she spoke up.

"Babydoll? The hunters see it. That explains why they let you know about them and hunt with them, even though you're just a human. How many more do you need to accept you before you will accept yourself?" She took a deep breath and took the plunge. "You need to let go and just be yourself babydoll. They accept you for what you are. And I love you for what you are." She reached up and stroked her friend's braids, tracing them down as they fell across her naked chest, trying not to show any hesitancy that might deny what she was saying.

"If you are a hunter, then I fell in love with a hunter. If you have to let go so that you can be yourself, then let go." She reached up and took hold of Marisa's wrists, lifting her hands to her own cheeks to caress them gently, before kissing the palms of her hands softly. She took a deep trembling breath, and turned to face Blade.

"Do you believe what the Elder said?" He growled assent loudly, nodding his head. He pointed to the mask, and she raised it to her face.

"Would I have come here if I did not? I meant it when I said I would hunt with you again." She reached over him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"We will have the chance soon enough. We have a queen to hunt." She thought for a minute. "You're the weaponsmaster for the group?" He nodded. "Would you help me with something?" He cocked his head to one side, and she smiled under her mask, looking around at the armor laying where she had thrown it. "I need some work done on my equipment before I hunt again."

-

* * *

-

She hissed her pleasure as the news reached her. One of her children had spotted one of the accursed creatures that had killed so many of its siblings, and had watched it from the shadows, undetected, as it had returned to its nest. The foolish creature had felt so secure that it did not bother to conceal its presence.

It would pay for its arrogance. She summoned her children back to the hive. Now it was time to plan.

They would all pay.

-

* * *

-

She woke slowly, stretching the sleep ache from her muscles. She was disorientated for a minute as she tried to remember where she was, but then memories came flooding back, and she _purred_. She could hear voices in the living room, one human, the other the gravelly growls and clicks of an alien. Seeing the sky outside the window was darkening, she figured that they had slept through the day. She rolled over and stood, stretching deliciously once more and savoring the feeling as her muscles tensed then relaxed, then grabbed one of the extra long t-shirts lying at the foot of the bed and draped it over herself, before padding quietly through the door. Hearing her entrance, the two figures by the sofa turned to face her, and she gasped.

Once uniform gray metal had been changed, the armor down the left side now marked with black and pale gray tribal patterns from mask to legs, the stylized TT burned into the forehead of the mask highlighted in muted silver. As she turned, Marisa saw the pattern repeated on the backpiece of her armor, even the barrel of the weapon mounted to her shoulder was marked. Her breath caught in her throat at the disturbing way the pattern highlighted her friend's form, and shivered when the shape wavered and faded into air, before returning to view.

Her friend walked towards her, and took her hands once more in her own, the soft otherworld fabric of the new fingerless black gloves rubbing against her flesh. Marisa stared into the now black coated eyeshields, before letting her gaze wander over her friend's head, seeing the freshly braided hair drape across her friend's shoulders. She pulled her hands from her friend's grip, and traced her fingertips over the hard surface protecting her friend, stroking briefly the armored housings of the vambraces that contained the jagged twin blades on either forearm. She looked over to the weaponsmaster.

"Nice job." Her friend giggled behind her mask, as Blade inclined his head in acknowledgment. She looked back as her friend disconnected her mask from her armor, and removed it. She could see a change in her friend's face, determination, perhaps peace as well. She saw trust there too, and her heart leaped with joy.

"Why the decoration, babydoll?" she asked.

"It's neither Yautja, or human, it's a combination of the two. Same as I am. If I'm going to be that on the inside, then I'll be that outside too." Marisa nodded, understanding.

"Good hunting, babydoll."


	17. Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis

**Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis**

"Your trainer told the Second not to invite you to hunt tonight." She looked at Blade and cocked her head, braids falling over the barrel of the plasma weapon quiescent on one shoulder. "He said you needed time to come to terms with things." She laughed. They were on a rooftop not too far from her apartment, having left Marisa behind not so long ago. The instruction explained why they hadn't been moving that fast to get anywhere.

"What I need right now is to forget everything and _just_ hunt", she said, perfectly serious. Blade looked at her. "No, I'm not going crazy or anything. I need to find out if he was right about me. I need to let go." She hesitated. "I just don't know how." A few minutes passed.

"You aren't ready to hunt yet, young blood", he noted clinically. She growled an inquiry at him. "I changed your armor, you need to test it." He had spent most of last night and all of the day working on her armor as she had requested, adjusting the fit to remove the chafing parts, designed to fit her long ago, as well as modifying the electronics and some of the weapons.

Some of the changes she had asked him to make would have seemed strange to him before, but having tested her and watched her techniques over the past few nights, he better understood how some of them might be used. She had certainly taken the idea of taking things and making them her own to heart, and he knew anyone who assumed that she was wearing the normal armor of a Yautja was likely to get a big, if unpleasant, surprise.

"OK, and how do we do that?", she asked, impishly. He stood, and as she followed suit, he motioned over to the edge of the building, a large gap between it and the next one.

"Meet me over there", he said, and without further warning sprinted towards the gap. Just before reaching it, he jumped into the air, and came down on the other side easily. He turned to look at her.

She looked at the gap and swallowed heavily, it was easily fifteen feet wide. With a mental shrug, she started, watching the edge and gaging her pace, until she reached it and jumped off as hard as she could. She landed heavily just on the other side, losing her balance, but she tucked into a ball and rolled, coming up to her feet after a complete turn. Blade walked over to her and checked her armor, tugging on it in places, and making sure all of the equipment attached at various points was still secure.

"Follow" was all he said before he turned and started jogging across the rooftop, and she shook her head as she tried to catch up. For the next hour, he led her along rooftops, down at street level, through parks, over fences, under drainage ditches ... every possible terrain short of desert or ocean, and by the time he slowed down she was sure that if there had been any of those nearby, he'd have taken her through those as well.

They had tried out the new markings pattern on her armor - it had been designed not only for decoration but also as a form of camouflage, breaking up her outline, making her harder to see in the dark and gloom if her cloak was off. He had warned her that if anyone saw her, she would have to kill them, reminding her of when her cloak had been destroyed by the _kainde amedha_, but this time was different. She would be the one that would be expected to kill any poor soul that spotted her. She was grateful that no-one did, even when she had been within feet of some of them, hidden in shadows. She wasn't sure how she would handle it, not yet.

They had tested the new electronics in her computer and her mask, and the tracking system for her plasma weapon. He had wanted to take the translator apart to see if he could replicate it, or at least improve on its vocabulary, but she had declined. It wasn't even Yautja technology, and although he meant well, she didn't want to risk damaging it in trying to improve on it.

-

They were taking a break, set back in the darkness underneath a bridge over a river, and as had become common between them were comparing notes on different fighting methods, when she heard a voice that tickled her memory coming closer. Both of them activated their cloaks and watched as a group of men came into view, one of them carrying something over his shoulder. She started as she realized that it was a human female the man was carrying, either unconscious or dead. As the group came up level with them under the bridge, they halted, the man depositing his burden on the path without ceremony.

She looked at that one and sudden recognition came to her, remembering where she had heard the voice, seen him before – he was one of the two thugs beating someone up several nights ago, one of the ones the Elder had stopped her from hunting. As the man and the four with him started to unbuckle their belts and unzip their flies, she realized just what they had in mind for their victim. She also knew that the chances were that they had selected under the bridge both for its proximity to the river as well concealment.

She didn't even consider consulting Blade, instead began to move to one side of the bridge overhang, then made her way down a slight embankment until she reached the path. She could see the cloaked figure of Blade follow suit, wordlessly, on the other side. She walked calmly towards the group, their laughter and raucous banter between each other sounding very far away, but hardening her intentions.

As she came up on the first, she clenched her fist, and the soft metallic click of her wristblades extending and locking into position was carried through the night air, followed by the wet thump as she punched through her target's back. He gasped, almost inaudibly, his back arching from the sudden sharp pain. She turned her hand then pulled her arm across, the blades tearing through the man's body to emerge from his side in a spray of warmth in the vision mode of her mask.

As the blood spatters splashed against them, they turned to see their comrade fall to the ground in a bloody heap, and gasped at the sight as she turned off her cloak, gray and black death wavering into view standing there with blood dripping from the silvered blades on her forearm. The distraction cost two more of them their lives as Blade came up from behind, turning his own cloak off as he did. He casually backhanded one, his alien strength sending the man crashing into a concrete support pillar to come to a halt slumped, his neck broken. In the same move, he extended his wrist blades and the arc of his arm send them into the neck of his second target, cutting through with ease and severing his head from his body.

She motioned slightly towards the one she had recognized, placing her claim on him. The weaponsmaster growled, the eerie sound freezing the two men, but simply an acknowledgment to her of her claim. As he moved towards the other man, she looked to her prey, watching as he raised his hands as if to ward her off, the man completely forgetting how much the move exposed himself. With a sense of poetic justice she stepped forward, and with a sweep of her arm, that particular problem was solved for him. As he looked down and opened his mouth to scream, she took another step, driving her wristblades deep into his stomach.

He looked into the night black eyeshields of her mask, pain etched on his face, disbelief and lack of understanding there, as she drew her arm up, the jagged backs of her blades cutting their way up. She barely felt the resistance of his sternum as the blades made contact, parting the bone with ease, until they reached his heart, trisecting it. He shuddered and started to fall, but she reached her other arm around him and held him up, switching her vision mode to visible light and looking into his eyes until the life faded from them, before dropping him finally to the ground. She turned and saw the last man being lifted from the ground, Blade's hand around his neck, and heard the crack as the weaponsmaster broke the man's neck.

It was only when the body hit the ground, thrown there by the weaponsmaster in disgust, that she realized what they had done. She examined her feelings, analyzing them, trying to find remorse, but one look at the state of the woman these men had been about to rape and probably murder meant she found none. She looked at Blade, then hesitantly, in question, pressed against the side of her armor, allowing a thin tail of the strong cord to come out. He looked back at her, then wordlessly nodded, and they set about finishing their hunt.

It took her only seconds to remember the knot that had been used to create the cords she'd carried the kainde amedha head with, and to tie a length of the cord around the ankles of each of her kills. She threw the loose end of each rope over the steel support beams high above, but needed Blade's strength to hoist the bodies up. She expected him to hoist them up high, but he stopped, one rope in each hand, as their heads came level with her own. She looked at him, but he remained motionless, observing her. Waiting. She looked at the two bodies, then bent forwards, pulling one of the long knives from it's mounting point against her calf. She straightened up again and closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them again, she didn't hesitate, grasping the hair of the first prey before sweeping the blade in a short arc, then stepping back to avoid the blood that fell out of the body like a waterfall, the severed head in her hand. She placed it on the ground beside the still unconscious female, and repeated the process with the second man she had killed. Blade pulled on the ropes then, lifting the bodies high, as she went back to the woman, scanning her quickly for injuries. Any qualms she might have had about what they, what _she_ had just done, vanished as she cataloged the bruises and broken bones, all fresh.

Blade came over, finished securing the ends of the ropes, and handed her a pair of small hooks. She stared at them not understanding, until he gestured to the three heads that were hanging over his own hip, and she nodded before taking each hook and running it through the mouth and under the chin of the two heads she had taken. She clipped the hooks to the side of her armor, and a part of her dimly took note that she was a lot smaller than Yautja, she couldn't hang as many skulls as they could. She looked up at the five bodies, their pendulum swing from being hoisted up already slowing to a halt, then back at the woman.

Blade recognize her concern, and gently lifted the woman in his arms, and the two of them made their way down the path a few hundred yards until they were in sight of a road, where they placed the woman before retreating, cloaking as they did so. She could feel the two skulls at her hip bouncing as they sped up, heading away from the area before the woman or the bodies were discovered. After a few minutes. Blade slowed the pace down again, as they reached a built up area and they could return to the rooftops, and eventually he called a halt to their march. She sank to her knees on the ground, breathing heavily, then quickly disconnected her mask from her armor, just managing to pull it clear from her face before she doubled over, retching violently onto the tar-paper roof.

-

"You need to clean those then we move again," he noted once she sat back, pointing to the heads hanging at her waist. "otherwise they will leave traces behind that can be used to track us." She looked at him, and saw that he had used the time while she was busy throwing up to clean two of the three he had taken and was about to begin on the third. She nodded slowly, unhooking the heads from her armor and placing them on the ground while she withdrew one of the long blades from her calf armor again.

As they both worked on cleaning the flesh from their trophies, he watched her. She seemed distant, lost in thought.

"What were you thinking of?", he asked after a while. She shrugged.

"I wasn't thinking of anything. I was just reacting." He nodded. As she finished blasting the remnants of tissue from the first skull with the enzyme spray, she looked it over, then at him.

"It didn't feel the same as taking the _kainde amedha_." He nodded.

"They had declared themselves prey, by hunting the human female. You proved who was the better hunter. Your trophies are earned." She nodded slowly, placing the skull to one side and working on the other. He finished his third one, and came across, crouching beside her.

"I thought I'd feel something, but I didn't."

"Good." She looked at him sharply. "We do not hate or fear our prey, young blood. To hunt from emotions increases the risk of failure" he explained.

"But I took human lives." He nodded, picking up the first skull she had cleaned and turning it over in his hands.

"You have done so before."

"That wasn't the same, those were always human bad bloods." He cocked his head at her.

"Just because these ones were outside those places where bad bloods nest changes it how?" She stopped what she was doing and stared into space, she had no answer for that.

He reached across and placed a claw on her shoulder gently.

"They do not have to be bad bloods to be prey, young blood. Is there really any difference between them?" She thought about it for several long minutes, turning his words over in her mind, trying to find those differences, but she couldn't. She shook her head and returned to cleaning the skull she held, and he took his claw from her shoulder, replacing the first skull in front of her and waiting patiently as she completed cleaning the second.

When she was done, he showed her how to hook through the skulls and hang them properly on her armor, facing outwards. She crouched there numbly as he did so, and almost mechanically rose with him as they set off again. She didn't notice, or care, the direction they were heading in, her mind was filled with trying to process the night's events, and her feelings.

He was concerned for her at her silence. He understood on some levels where she was conflicted, but he couldn't figure out how to explain things to her, to help her understand. She had done well, and he had been surprised and pleased when she had suggested hanging the bodies – he had seen it as a sign that she was finally beginning to understand the hunt. But watching her now, he knew she was still shying away from her nature.

He realized that he was leading her towards the borders of the industrial and business zones again, her hunting grounds. He briefly considered the Elder's instruction that she not be invited to hunt _kainde amedha_ tonight, but considering her reactions to having killed the two humans, he was beginning to think that she would have an easier time coming to terms with herself if she was given the opportunity to hunt familiar prey in familiar territory. It would give her the opportunity to 'let go', as the human female had called it, without the moral qualms she seemed to be suffering from at the moment coming into play.

He called a halt to their travel when the reached what he thought was the edge of her hunting grounds. He sat down against a stone parapet on the rooftop, and as she joined him he reached around behind her to disconnect a small container attached above her medical kit, bringing it around and handing it to her.

"Eat, rest for a few minutes." She nodded, and disconnected her mask then lifted it clear from her face in a hiss of escaping pressure, before opening one end of the container and withdrawing its contents.

"I am going to kill her" she said suddenly, startling him. He looked down at what she held, but despite his scanning it, he couldn't determine what it was. She answered the question for him, holding the article up in front of his eyeshields.

"She made me a packed lunch. With _tomatoes_. She _knows_ I _hate_ tomatoes!" She started to laugh, wryly, but he considered that a good sign that she was dealing with her emotions of earlier. He gestured to her mask, and she pressed it against her face so she could understand him.

"Next _kainde amedha_ you kill, you could always take a piece back to her as a snack." She stared at him them laughed loudly, as he disconnected his own mask and reached for his own meal container. He stared at the orange wafer-like contents with distaste, and she looked over. She held her own as-yet untouched meal up and cocked her head.

"Swap?" He thought for a moment. Hunter's rations were bland by Yautja standards, but shouldn't be toxic for humans, and Yautja physiology gave them a remarkable ability to 'live off the land' on many of the planets they hunted on. He nodded, and they exchanged their food.

Both of them took a bite, and both spat it out at the same time. They looked at each other and wordlessly agreed to skip the whole idea, packing the meal containers up and reattaching them to their respective armor. They sat there for a few more minutes in silence, until he decided they had rested long enough, and gestured to her to replace her mask as he stood.

"Where would we find human bad bloods?" he asked her suddenly. She looked at him, then over the edge of the parapet to the street below. Mentally, she tried to figure out where they were, but hadn't paid enough attention – she was lost. He saw her confusion, and pointed to the computer on her thigh. She slapper herself mentally for forgetting, and crouched down before bringing the computer online and displaying the holographic map of the area. Once she had located their position, she was able to quickly orient herself, and she pointed off into the distance, deeper into the industrial area.

"There should be a small one a couple of miles over there, assuming it hasn't been hit by copycats or _kainde amedha_. Why?" she asked, bluntly.

"You haven't hunted them using your armor." Her mind flashed back to what her trainer had said, that she only wore the armor now because the Elder had required it of her, to hunt _kainde amedha_, that she wouldn't hunt humans in it.

"_So what was earlier?"_, she asked herself. She knew why she was avoiding it – she had seen how much easier the armor made hunting _pyode amedha_, the soft meat. She had seen Yautja exult at the end of a hunt in their armor. She was afraid that if she hunted in the armor, if it was easy, she'd lose herself and just kill. But that was before she understood why they screamed their victory, felt the energy and emotion. Absently, she stroked the eye ridge of one of the human skulls dangling at her hip, not even realizing it.

She didn't want to kill indiscriminately. She wanted to hunt things that were a challenge, something worthwhile screaming victory over.

That was what he wanted her to be. Prey that was a challenge.

Something clicked in her head, everything finally coming into alignment. She shook herself and looked at Blade.

"Sounds like now would be the perfect time to rectify that, don't you think?"

-

* * *

-

The red and blue strobes flashed across the white bandage in syncopated harmony as she pressed past the medics and firefighters clustered around the crime scene tape, but her advance was foiled by the young eager looking cop standing guard at the top of the path. He held out his arm to block her, and she stopped for a second, surprised. She flashed her press badge at him and made as if to continue on, but he moved across to stand in front of her.

"I'm sorry, Miss, I can't let you go down there." She glared at him, while her cameraman tried to maneuver his way through the same crowd to reach her.

"Do you know who I am?", she demanded in her most intimidating tone. He smiled urbanely at her, nodding.

"Yes Miss, but I still can't let you go down there." She was about to let loose with a blistering routine of curses when she noticed a familiar face coming up the path. She waited until the man, in a cop sergeant's uniform, reached them and smiled at him. The look in his eyes made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and as he motioned her over to one side she wondered what he had seen. She could taste an acrid smell in the back of her throat, and she was disgusted and repulsed when she realized that it was the smell of vomit coming from the cop himself.

"What the hell happened that's got you so messed up?", she asked undiplomatically. He just looked at her, then shook his head. "Was it the same woman that's been hitting the drug dens?"

"Not unless she's decided to start stealing heads instead of teeth." She blinked.

"_Teeth?"_, she wondered. He must have been really rattled if he was talking about telltales, the information the police didn't release about crimes to try to weed out the crazies. "What do you mean?"

"There's five bodies under the bridge ... whoever did it took their heads, carved up on some of them. Looks like they were planning on raping some poor sod and dumping her afterwards. She's on her way to ER, she's pretty banged up but she'll live." He looked off into the distance and started to shake. "They were hung up by their ankles under there, then the heads taken off. The blood ... " His voice tailed off. She was trying to scribble this down and he looked at her bandaged hand.

"What happened to you anyways?" She looked at him, then at her hand.

"Bad accident with a car door, I lost the tip of my pinky finger in it. It'll heal." The cop nodded, but the cameraman behind her just shook his head sorrowfully.

"Wait, what did you mean by 'the same woman that's been hitting' ..." She smiled at him, cursing her slip. She thought quickly, and an idea came to her.

"I'd heard from a junkie that had been outside one of the places that got hit that a woman in black, her hair in dreads or something, ran from it right after the murders. I figured I'd see if you knew anything. So you're confirming the junkie's report?" The cop snorted.

"I don't know squat about no woman in black. This junkie got a name?" She shook her head.

"You know I can't reveal sources." He snorted again.

"Fine, if you're not going to talk to me, there's no reason I got to talk to you", he snarled as he stomped off back under the tape. She smiled to herself, she'd gotten a telltale about the mob murders, and planted a seed in the minds of the police about the bitch. This might not be a wasted trip after all. She turned, ignoring her cameraman's disapproving look, and headed back to the van. She needed to think what she was going to say in her report later.


	18. Extra territorium ius dicenti impune

**Extra territorium ius dicenti impune non paretur**

After watching her hunt in two of the mob houses, the weaponsmaster had been satisfied with how she was adjusting to her modified armor. She had adapted her techniques to the armor well, although he thought she was still concentrating too much on the two long blades clipped to the inside of her calf armor. He considered requiring she leave them behind the next time they hunted, he'd have to discuss it with the Second. The size adjustments had been harder to make, the metal of the armor not being easy to reshape, but he'd managed to remove the chafing issue completely.

He had been surprised when she had still only severed the spinal cords of her prey and removed some of their teeth, rather than taking what he considered to be 'proper' trophies, but she explained that she didn't want to change that policy, preferring that her future prey know it was the same one attacking them. Her decision made sense, and was a good indication to him that she was starting to come to terms with the idea of what she was, and was becoming.

Daylight was still several hours away as they crouched in a multi-storey parking structure near the third building of the night, watching the comings and goings as she prepared to make entry, when she noticed the scent. Smiling to herself fondly, she turned just as the Second turned off his cloak and stepped up to join them, crouching down partially as convention, and partially to avoid being noticed over the low wall, even this high up. He looked at her modified armor and its color scheme critically, before turning with a clicking laugh to the weaponsmaster.

"So that is what kept you awake throughout the day. You were being very mysterious." Blade laughed in return, removing his mask.

"She had some curious changes she wished made, they were a challenge to produce." The Second growled in understanding and turned back to her, removing his own mask as he did so. She was getting better at reading Yautja facial expressions, and could see he was concerned.

"How do you feel?" he asked her. In answer, she turned to one side, bringing the two skulls hanging from her hip into view. His eyes widened with surprise, and he looked from her to Blade and back again. Deliberately, he raised one hand and placed it on her shoulder, giving it a gentle shake and purring with pleasure. She inclined her head in gratitude, letting out a purr of her own, and he laughed as he removed his hand and dropped it to his side.

"I was going to question you hunting again so soon, I was finishing scouting this area when I saw you both move into position. I see now that I had no need to be concerned. I am curious as to what helped you, though". She looked out into the night sky for a minute before answering.

"That first night, when the Elder had me wear armor, he sent you back to the ship to fetch the pieces I was missing." The Second nodded, remembering. "Before you came back, we came across a pair of _pyode amedha_ attacking someone. I was going to intervene but the Elder stopped me. I made sure to remember them though, for later. Tonight, Blade was having me test the changes he made to my armor, we were resting for a bit, and one of those two men showed up with some of his friends. They had a human female with them, they were going to rape and probably kill her."

The Second's eyes narrowed in annoyance at the concept, but he kept silent as her voice grew quiet.

"I don't know what I felt, if anything. I was moving and killing before I even thought about the why. I looked in his eyes as he died, the guy from that first night, and I didn't feel anything really. He was just prey, and he'd lost." The Second nodded, before Blade interrupted.

"She did vomit afterwards, but that is perhaps understandable. She had hunted two humans, taken trophies. She was the one that suggested the remains be hung." The Second looked at her in surprise, but held his silence as the weaponsmaster continued. "I thought it would be helpful to let her hunt the human bad bloods, to help her remember hunting that she has had little difficulty with emotionally in the past. She has hunted two locations well, this was to be her third of the night."

The Second looked over the wall to the building below thoughtfully, then growled a negative. Both she and the weaponsmaster cocked their heads.

"There has been no trace of _kainde amedha_ anywhere tonight", the Second explained. "Both Elders find this of concern, and have instructed all hunters to stand down and rest. They believe that we will all need it soon." He looked at her. "You should return to your nest now. These bad bloods will be here still another night." She nodded. "We will return to the ship, and meet at your nest just after nightfall." The Second paused, looking at the weaponsmaster, who looked positively _embarrassed_.

The Second cocked his head to one side in interrogation, and Blade reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a small black stone on the same sort of thread she had used to hang the bodies of her kills with. He held it up in front of her, and she held out a hand to cup the dangling medallion, her turn to look at him curiously.

"It is a hunter's symbol", the Second supplied, respectfully, and the weaponsmaster growled in agreement.

"While I was modifying your armor, I made that for you. I had thought that perhaps it would help you with coming to terms with yourself. It might not be necessary, given the events of this night's hunting, but it might yet make things easier for you." He released the pendant and she caught it easily, turning the flat stone over in her hand and feeling the design embossed on either side.

"It is given by a trainer as a mark of faith in a student", the Second noted helpfully. "When the hunter is blooded by someone other than the one who trained them, this adds their trainer to their history and lineage. It means that he", the Second inclined his head to the weaponsmaster, "permits Yautja to know that he has tested you and considers you worthy. By his standards, that is, although those are held in high esteem amongst Yautja." She thought it over for a minute.

"And the Elder who has trained me hasn't given me one because ... ?" The Second laughed.

"Probably because he will be the one to blood you properly, when he decides you have earned that." She nodded, and looked to the weaponsmaster as she removed her own mask. Once it was clear of her face, she bowed her head and crossed her hands over her chest in the gesture the two Yautja had come to recognize as her way of showing respect. Blade inclined his head in acknowledgment, and as she straightened up she hung the pendant around her neck, then replaced her mask.

"I will honor it as I do the mark my armor wears, and will the mark I intend to wear." The Second looked at her and clicked a laugh.

"She still has a young blood's confidence." Blade laughed, and both Yautja placed their masks over their faces once more. "Get some rest young blood. You have earned _that_ much at least." the Second continued, standing. She grinned behind her mask as she and Blade followed suit, and as they cloaked she felt a pang of camaraderie with those two blunt-spoken aliens. If the time came where they hunted her, she would do her damnedest to be worth the effort for them.

-

She came in through the balcony door and was startled when there was no sign of Marisa, who had become almost a permanent feature in the past week sprawled out asleep on the couch. Then she smiled to herself as she remembered. Moving quietly, she entered the bedroom and stood there for long minutes, looking at her friend through the heat-sensitive eyes of her mask. Marisa had curled up into a loose ball, cuddling one of the pillows, looking so peaceful that she hated to risk waking her up. The hidden warning of the Second's instructions to get some sleep, that she would need it soon, came unbidden to her mind though.

Once the closet was opened and the security device had half blinded her making sure she really was supposed to be there, she quickly removed her armor, stowing it back in its drawer. It was only as she started unfastening her belt that she realized she still had two human skulls hanging from it. She looked quickly to the bed, right into Marisa's eyes. She had woken as her friend was disrobing, and was watching her curiously. Marisa smiled up at her friend, but said nothing, so she turned back to the closet and unhooked the skulls before placing them either side of the shelf where her mask rested.

Once she had finished undressing, all her equipment tucked away securely behind the booby-trapped closet door, she hesitantly slipped between the covers. She shivered as Marisa stroked a fingertip down the curve of her spine, but when her friend spooned in behind and wrapped her arms wordlessly around her, she realized that everything was still going to be OK, and finally allowed herself to fall into a deep, dreamless, sleep.

-

When she woke, Marisa was already dressed and bustling around in the living room. She yawned, then after managing to find a clean nightshirt wandered out to see what her friend was up to.

"You need to wear more than that, babydoll." Marisa greeted her. She blinked in confusion, walking over to the counter and pouring herself a mug of coffee. After a few sips, she was finally coherent enough to risk articulating a "huh?", and Marisa laughed.

"It's a beautiful day outside, there are vampires have seen more daylight than you lately." Marisa paused and looked at her. "Er, vampires don't exist too, do they?" She laughed, shaking her head, and Marisa smiled brightly before continuing. "So I figure you need to get out some." She began to shake her head and explain she needed to catch up on rest when Marisa came over and looked at her seriously.

"Babydoll, they said you sit on both sides, right? That means you need to have a life as a normal person too. You need to keep your perspective." She blinked. Her trainer had said Marisa was perceptive, but she hadn't expected that sort of comment from her. She thought it over while Marisa stood there, and eventually had to agree with her friend's logic. She tossed off the last of her coffee, and started back towards the bedroom, but as she drew level with Marisa she impulsively gave her a hug and a kiss. Marisa laughed and licked the tip of her friend's nose, then extricated herself from the hug.

"Go get dressed, babydoll, and we can go shopping!" She groaned theatrically - Marisa was still Marisa, despite meeting aliens, coming within an inch of being killed out of hand, revealing her taboo love, and coming eyeball to eye-socket with two fresh human skulls. She sighed to herself, she had no idea what she'd ever done to deserve a friend like that. She wasn't going complaining, though. She was coming to believe that her chances of being able to find herself and remain sane might have increased exponentially with Marisa becoming involved, although she still was afraid for her friend's safety.

As she dressed, she looked regretfully at the gap in her armory. The long blades she'd worn for so long had been made for her specifically, perfectly balanced, just the right length to be concealed under her clothes and not bind as she drew them. But she had lost one when the _kainde amedha_ had almost killed her the other night, its tempered blade molten to vapor in an instant's exposure to the corrosive blood of hard meat. She tried just wearing one, but it didn't feel right, until she had an idea, and rummaged in one of the side drawers of the weapons closet ... no, her _trophy vault_, now.

She quickly dug out a scabbard and fashioned a harness to run under both of her armpits from an old shoulder holster. Fashioning a loop from the cord contained within her armor, she attached the scabbard to the cross-over section of the improvised harness, adjusting the hang until it the scabbard sat against her spine. She fastened the bottom loosely to the belt loops of her slacks, and tried drawing the blade from behind her. It was a little awkward at first, but with some adjustments to the length of the loops, and the harness itself, she was able to get everything arranged in such a way that she could still draw the blade fast if the need arose.

She added a handful of other small blades to their hidden pockets in her clothes, and turned to head back to the living room to see Marisa standing quietly in the doorway.

"Why do you need those, babydoll?" She looked down, unsure how to answer. "I'm not upset or anything, I just want to understand you some more." She nodded.

"Remember last time we were at the mall? Those two guys wanted to rape and kill me. If I hadn't been armed, they might have had a better chance of being the ones to win. And ever since I started hunting, my life has been in danger. It's easier to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them." Marisa nodded,

"Makes sense. Let's hope that you don't need them!"

Three hours later, she was considering using the long blade to slice up Marisa's credit cards, it seemed like she'd gone wild, and for a while she wondered if Marisa was really handling everything as well as she'd appeared to be. She knew Marisa was reasonably well off, they both were, living from investments they had made over the years that had matured incredibly well, but when she looked at the receipts at each store, she thought Marisa's funds were getting hit harder than a _kainde amedha_ tail could slam into someone's chest.

They had made their third visit back to the car to drop off bags of shopping when Marisa finally decided it was time for something to eat. She had picked a different mall for this trip, one a little more upscale than the one where her friend had turned her would-be rapist into something almost, but not quite, resembling chunky salsa, so she decided to skip McDonald's and instead dragged her friend to a bar that she swore blind served good food too.

She had to admit, Marisa's taste in eateries was better (in her opinion at least) than her taste in clothes, and she dug down into the first proper meal she'd had in nearly a week. She reasoned that it was actually probably for the best, if she was going to need her sleep as much as the Second had hinted at during the night, then she should probably stock up on food too. It took them a good forty minutes to finish their meals, and when they were done both felt bloated and contented. As Marisa was waiting for the waitress to return with the check, she was going to have words with her about putting tomatoes in her "packed lunch" of the night before, when she sensed someone come up behind her, crouching down.

"I know who you are, bitch", a voice hissed in her ear, venomously. She turned slightly to see who had spoken, and came face to face with a woman. She looked disturbingly familiar, but there was a maniacal look in the stranger's eyes that made her consider reaching for a weapon on the spot. Marisa noticed the newcomer to the table and looked on nervously.

"I'm sorry, do I ..."

"I'll bet you're sorry. I know who you are", the woman interrupted, repeating herself. "I know what you've been up to." She blinked as her mind worked furiously trying to figure out who this was, and what she was talking about. A chill hit her suddenly as she finally came up with a name to place with the face.

"You're that reporter from ..."

"Yes, and if you don't do what I tell you to do, I'll plaster you all over the six o'clock news!" She was beginning to get irritated at the interruptions, but she wasn't about to take being threatened. Marisa beat her too it, though.

"I'm sorry, but we're just trying to have lunch here, and you're bothering us. Please leave, or I'll call a cop." The woman laughed, a short sharp laugh on the wrong edge of insanity.

"Shut up. Go ahead, call the cops. See what they think about your friend here being a mass murderer." Marisa's mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried to think of an answer, her heart beating a thousand times a second in her chest. _"She knows!"_

"I'm sorry, you must have me confused with someone else." The same fear had gone through her mind at the reporter's words, but her reaction was the opposite of Marisa's. She could feel her mind slowing, focusing, switching gears into the hunter's headspace instinctively. This woman was a danger. What to do about her?

"Oh, no, I remember _you_, bitch. Remember your big alien friends? The warehouse that blew up? I saw the whole fucking thing. And I saw _you_." The reporter prodded at her with one perfectly manicured finger, most of her hand covered in white bandages. Her voice was becoming shrill, but thankfully was still low enough that the general noise of the bar drowned it from being heard by the other patrons. "So if you don't want film of the whole thing all over TV, you'll do what I say." Playing for time, she nodded slowly, trying to put a dejected, resigned look of surrender on her face.

Marisa tensed across the table as she saw her friend apparently capitulate to this crazy woman, but a slight shake of her friend's head stopped her from saying anything further.

"Fine, but not here. She", she said, inclining her head towards Marisa, "has nothing to do with anything. Leave her alone, and we'll go talk." In her deranged state, the usually perceptive reporter missed the signs of her caving in too easily, and didn't recognize the dangers. She gleefully stood and imperiously gestured for her to follow, so sure of her victory that she didn't even bother to wait, but instead started towards the door direct to the street outside. She slowly rose, leaning over to give Marisa a quick reassuring kiss on the forehead.

"Head back to the apartment. I don't want her following you, I can lose her easier", she whispered. As she drew back, Marisa caught her eye.

"Are you ...", Marisa's voice trailed off as her friend shook her head.

"She's unarmed as far as I can tell, so she's safe. For now." Marisa didn't like either the way she said it, or the 'for now' part, but nodded quickly, trusting that her friend wouldn't be impulsive. She waited until her friend had left, before quickly paying the check and leaving.

As she got outside, she noticed the reporter a few yards along the sidewalk. She forced herself to maintain the impression she had been cowed into submission as she walked slowly up to the woman, who snapped impatiently at her.

"Let's get something straight from the start. When I say you do something, you do it quick, got it?"

She came up to the reporter and looked up, and it was the turn of the reporter's blood to turn to ice. The look in her eyes was cold, hard, emotionless. But it was the smile she allowed to spread across her lips, a smile that didn't reach those killer's eyes, that caused Kylie's heart to leap into her throat. She was about to back away when hands toughened like steel through training reached up and grabbed her by the upper arms, swinging her until her back slammed into the wall of the mall. Vice like fingers tightened, pressing deep into her bicep muscles until she tried to scream in pain, but the look in her opponent's eyes held her, and all she could manage was a whimper.

"Let _us_ get something straight from the start, lady. When you say something, pray I ignore you. You do _not_ want me noticing you. You do _not_ want me seeing you. And you very _much_ do _not_ want to get involved." Her voice was soft, patronizing, but held the promise of dire consequence. She looked down as she heard a pattering noise, and laughed inwardly as she saw the reporter had wet herself in fear. How quickly the reversal of fortunes.

Kylie tried to bluster, running out her threats of exposure again, the curses, the insults, but she simply looked at the terrified reporter, and realized that she was too far gone into some irrational hatred to reason with. Briefly she considered the utility of simply killing the obnoxious _pyode amedha_, but her reassurance to Marisa rang in her mind – she's unarmed, off limits. Not worthy prey.

She doubted if this woman would be worthy prey if she was armed to the teeth. That perhaps was the ultimate condemnation, and as the thought came to her, the reporter could see it in her eyes. She wasn't making any headway with her threats, because the bitch simply didn't _care_.

There wasn't anything more she could do. She'd given the reporter fair warning. If she didn't back down, then she'd be fair game, for threatening to expose the Yautja. Part of her hoped she'd be just that stupid. She let go of the terrified woman's arms, and simply turned and walked away, leaving her sobbing gently, surrounded by a growing puddle of her own wastes.

-

* * *

-

He'd waited on the rooftop across from the _pyode amedha_'s nest for hours. The Second's decision to abandon hunting for the _kainde amedha_ early had seemed like a blessing in disguise, giving him the opportunity to get some rest, then awaken early. He had explained his leaving the ship during daylight as being his wanting to check something he thought he'd seen during the night, and it had been readily accepted by the guard on the ship ramp.

It had taken him all of his willpower not to speak up when the weaponsmaster had recounted how this mere human, this _prey_, had dared to take trophies. It wasn't enough that the Elder had blooded her, but they were treating her like she was somehow different. He knew the truth, she was there simply to be hunted. To give her armor, to blood her, to let her hunt – all these things were making a mockery of everything it meant to be Yautja. It mocked _him_.

The solution was simple. She had to die. And she had even provided him with the perfect scapegoats to take the blame. She had hunted _kainde amedha_, and she _said_ she killed all of them that she had fought, but they only had _her_ word for that. Who could say that she hadn't missed one? After all she _was_ just a human. Who could say that she hadn't been tracked back to her nest, and the hard meat hadn't exacted their revenge on her?

Let her own arrogance be his alibi.

It would mean having to forgo collecting her skull for his trophy vault, the _kainde amedha_ didn't take trophies, but he could live with that. She would be dead, and things could return to normal. He could participate in the _kainde amedha_ trial, kill many of them, and be marked as a blooded hunter, to return home in pride. No _prey_ was going to get in his way.

He fingered the short stabbing spear he had fashioned from a _kainde amedha_ tail spike. He had taken it from the site of one of the battles with the hard meat another team had been in the other night, curse them for having had the chance he kept being denied. Curse _her_ for denying him. _He_ should have been selected to hunt the egg storage, _he_ should have been training under the Second and the weaponsmaster, catching their eye with his skill. Not _her_!

"_Let us see what they think of her skills when they think she fell to _kainde amedha_ in her own nest."_

He stiffened as he watched through the window in the balcony door as a human entered the nest. He quickly changed vision modes, scanning and magnifying, until he could see her heat characteristics.

"_Yes!"_

He rose and padded across the rooftop, checking his cloak was still active, before dropping down to the ground, maneuvering across the quiet road, then beginning to ascend the metal structure affixed to the side of the building. He quietly made his way to the correct level, then edged out across the wide stonework to the balcony, until he was there, within reach. He looked in through the window again, but had a momentary panic as he couldn't locate the _pyode amedha_. Only the sound of rushing water could be heard, and after a second he clicked a low laugh. The human was bathing herself.

"_Good. That means she will not be near her weapons."_

He quietly entered the living room, and located the bathroom easily. Still cloaked, he looked through the door just as the sound of water stopped, and he froze. Ste stepped out from behind a fabric partition onto the tiled floor, reaching up for a large cloth hanging from the wall. He was grateful to her for concealing her ugly body with it, and once she had secured it around herself, she leaned forwards to allow her hair to drape downwards. She wrapped another cloth around it, and as she rose up he saw the perfect opportunity, with her hands busying themselves securing the smaller cloth. He stepped forwards, bringing the short spear up and plunging it into her chest.

He saw her eyes widen with shock and pain, and he turned off his cloak, so she would know who had beaten her, who had proven themselves more worthy. He watched as her eyes showed alternating fear, questioning, and betrayal, and he twisted the _kainde amedha_ tail inside her. It was only then that she screamed, a long quavering cry of despair and agony. He wrenched the barbed tail free, dragging a spew of blood and viscera with it, and her cry was choked off as blood bubbled up from her lips.

Knowing it would only be moments before other _pyode amedha_, hearing the scream, would come to investigate, he turned quickly and activated his cloak as he ran through the open balcony door and leaped out into space, confident he could handle the fall with no difficulty. As he left, he heard the soft thump of her body landing on the tiled floor.

"_All so easy."_

-

He heard the scream, and knew it to be a death scream. _From _her_ nest!_ He had been climbing the fire escape, planning to see for himself the changes the Second and weaponsmaster had reported in _her_, and he started to run, jumping six steps at a time, the metal treads bending under his weight at speed. He glimpsed from the corner of his vision something falling from above ... _a cloaked Yautja?_ He ran faster, fearing the worst. He leaped across the intervening gap between the fire escape and the balcony, swarming over it and barreling into her nest. He switched vision modes quickly, looking for the heat signature of footprints, and tracked the hot-red trail of human and Yautja feet to the bathroom.

He roared in anger as he spied the body on the floor, the rapidly spreading pool of blood beneath showing as crimson in the heat-sensitive mode of his mask as it did in visible light. He rushed to her and turned her over, then was confused – the heat pattern wasn't _her_. He looked at her wound, a jagged slice to one side of her breastbone. Switching modes, he scanned her internal organs and saw they were severely damaged, shredded by the removal of the cruelly barbed ... _"_kainde amedha_ tail?"_ He dropped her back to the floor, whirling round and checking the rest of the nest, but he found no trace of _her_ or _kainde amedha_.

Perplexed, he returned quickly to the bathroom and looked down on the female, noticing her breathing was ragged and shallow, her heartbeat stuttering close to failing. If this wasn't _her_, then it must be _her_ friend. Thinking quickly, he started trying to save her life.

-

She was in the elevator when she heard it, and her heart stopped. She _knew_. Frantically she stabbed at the button for her floor, as if that would speed its ascent, but with maddening frustrating slowness it continued its stately progress.

An eternity later, the doors opened, and she was through them before there was anything closely resembling a gap wide enough for her. But her desperation, her terror, drove her through, ripping the long blade strapped over her spine loose to dangle by one cord.

She slammed into the door, stumbling as she went through the only-latched barrier.

"Marisa?" she cried out, running into the bedroom, then headed to the bathroom to stop dead at the doorway. Crouched over the bloody remains of her friend ... her love ... was _him_.

She screamed, and tried to draw the long blade from behind her, but with the cords having come loose she couldn't grip it well enough for it to come away. As she struggled to pull it free, he stood and in one long stride was on her. He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her own arms against her sides. She struggled and kicked, trying to bit his shoulder, all the time looking at the body of her friend in a circle of scarlet blood and flesh. All at once she moaned, a long drawn out exhalation of despair, and he released her to collapse to the ground a boneless heap.

-

When she regained consciousness, she was lying on her bed, her closet open and her mask on her face, with him sat on the end of the bed, watching her. She was eying the distance between the bed and the drawer with her armor in it when a voice from his loop recording made her pause, blinking hard.

"Cally."

Her voice.

Her name.

She backed down from the brink of her own madness for a moment, stunned. He had never used her name, not once, not ever.

He growled something, and she read the words as they scrolled inexorably across the bottom of her vision.

"I did not kill her." He said it perfectly calmly. "If you wish to arm yourself and challenge me now, that is your choice, but your death will not bring to justice the one who has done this." It took her several tries to make her mouth form coherent words.

"You never used my name before", she mumbled.

"I thought it might help in preventing you from doing something rash before you had the opportunity to hear an explanation", he replied, simply.

"So explain", she demanded sharply. He didn't react to her tone, instead laying out what he had seen, and encountered when he arrived.

"I did all I could for her. I know she was your friend." She started crying, then, huge sobs wracking her body as the tears flowed freely. He watched her, impassively, until she was reduced to rapid coughing sobs.

"Who?", she asked when she was finally able to take a breath.

"I could not identify the Yautja responsible. But it is probable that he will betray himself", he replied. She nodded, then looked at him, but he gave no other response. After a few minutes, she stood and crouched before the closet, opening her equipment drawer and beginning to equip herself.

"If you go there in anger, or seeking vengeance, you will lose", he said. She whirled on him, still crouched down, and the tip of her spear, the one the Second had given her, sprang out to come to a halt an inch from his mask. He didn't flinch.

"I won't lose."


	19. Excusatio non petita accusatio manifesta

**Excusatio non petita accusatio manifesta**

She knew what she was doing was going to get complicated. Once, many years ago, he had explained the process to her, when telling her of Yautja protocols - She just hadn't ever expected to be using that long-forgotten lesson.

It had taken him a while to persuade her to listen to his counsel though. All she could think of, all she felt, was the burning inside her for revenge, but his voice, that maddening, infuriatingly calm voice, grounded her in reality.

As she approached the warehouse he had pointed out to her, she could feel the added weight of his suggestions – all of the teeth she had taken as trophies, dangling from thin cords and intertwined around the mesh of the undergarment of her armor. He had shown her how to thread them through the black threads, and now they tapped against her skin with every move. She had mounted the silvered teeth of the _kainde amedha_ she had taken to the pendant the weaponsmaster had given her, one either side as it rode outside her chest armor, in the valley between the swell of metal protecting her breasts.

She had wondered at the need for such a display, but he had patiently explained to her that she needed to remind them all who, and _what_, she was, for her to be able to pull this off. She needed them to see she was a hunter, to remind them of the place their own Elder had acknowledged she held.

Complicated didn't even begin to come close.

She had looked in, just before she left. Her friend still lay there, surrounded by the contents of the medical kit she had kept under the kitchen sink, the gaping hole in her chest filled with blue fluid, testament to the trainer's attempts to save her. But she knew from her own experience that there had been no chance of even Yautja technology saving her, the damage had been to great. She almost lost it once more when she saw the look on her friend's face, the pain that she must have felt, but she hardened herself, taking her emotions and locking them away inside her heart.

The time would come to mourn later, but it would be an easier task knowing the one who had killed Marisa was also dead.

As she ducked under a partially collapsed doorway and entered the warehouse, she stood for a moment, awed by what she saw. Her only experience with Yautja ships had been the small craft her trainer traveled in, and although she'd been on _this_ ship once before, she had been unconscious both arriving and leaving. It filled the warehouse with its bulk, shimmering patterns of color and energy rippling across its cloaked hull under the eyes of her mask's enhanced vision.

Built to carry hunting parties, it had at least two decks, maybe three she guessed, the entry ramp to the lower one reaching down to the ground ahead of her. What she assumed to be the drives, rockets, whatever it used for propulsion rested just ahead of her and above, she'd managed to arrive at the wrong end of the ship. Not the most auspicious start to the proceedings.

She knew that the ship's sensors would already have spotted her, before she'd even entered the warehouse, and would have alerted the Yautja who was on watch. That the ramp was still down she considered a good sign, they would have raised it and sealed the ship if they'd been alarmed by her presence. She turned off her cloak and walked under the hull of the craft towards the ramp, arming the plasma weapon on her shoulder and loosening the clips to the weapons she wore as she did so, as her trainer had instructed her.

Just the very attempt to board a Yautja vessel without permission, permission she could not ask for, could be considered grounds for her to be attacked by the hunters aboard, even if she had been Yautja herself. Her task there prevented her from asking, and her chances of receiving it were slim even if she had. For her to gain the chance for justice, she would have to break some of the rules. That she might have to try to fight her way onto the ship didn't bother her as much as the idea of breaking those rules did.

As she drew closer to the ramp, she could see a Yautja standing at the bottom, cloaked and watching her curiously. She breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't recognize him – she wasn't sure if she could have engaged the Second, or the weaponsmaster, or even the Elder without hesitating. She saw him tense up and reach tentatively towards the spear on his back, but she kept walking forwards steadily, seemingly ignoring him. As she reached the ramp, she stepped onto it without pause, not even looking at the hunter who stood there with his head cocked to one side.

He had told her that she needed to act with single purpose, to let the hunters see she had a destination in mind, that she knew what she was doing. That determination would make them hesitate to act against her, wondering what her purpose was, and whether she was allowed. In case of doubt, given her unique status, they would defer to the Elder, and _he_ was the one she needed to see. This hunter would see her weapon was armed, would note how she acted, and would know that something was going on. She hoped he would do what she needed and not interfere, instead seek the Elder out for advice.

She was only partially consoled that he neither attacked her, nor went running for the Elder, instead being content to fall in behind her to watch what she was doing. Thanks to her trainer's directions, by the time she reached the top of the ramp she knew what direction she needed to go in next and headed deeper into the bowels of the ship without needing to catch her bearings, her Yautja shadow trailing a cautious distance behind. The deep red muted glow coming from the walls echoing the dark feelings inside, she surprised another Yautja who was coming out of a side chamber. He looked at her, then to the hunter behind her, who must made some signal as he simply stood to one side to let her past.

She paid them little mind, focusing on where she was going. By now the Yautja following her would have recognized her destination. If she deviated from the path to reach it, he might not give her the opportunity to correct the mistake. She reached a ramp that led upwards and unhesitatingly took it, ascending to the next level. Two more turns in the corridors, and she was there, finally. Resisting the temptation to gawk, she walked to the precise center of the chamber and came to a stop, un-clipping her spear from its place against her thigh. She faced towards a wide opening in one wall, before squeezing the shaft of her spear, bringing one of the ends down to the ground sharply as it extended to its full length. She was committed.

The Yautja that had been following moved around to a spot just ahead of her and looked her over, but she stayed motionless, standing easily. He inclined his head to her, once, then turned and left through the opening in a hurry.

Then she waited.

-

They were going over their plans for the night's hunt – The Elder, the Second, and the weaponsmaster, when the hunter arrived at the doorway to the Elder's chambers. He didn't wait for permission to enter, coming straight in, and the Elder's pending rebuke was halted by the look of urgency on the hunter's face.

"Elder, the _pyode amedha_ hunter is in the main council chamber", the hunter said without preamble. The three experienced Yautja exchanged looks, and the Elder rounded on the hunter.

"How did she get on board the ship?", he demanded, angrily, but the hunter stood his ground.

"I allowed her to, Elder. She came to the ship fully armed, weapons active." The Elder was quiet for a moment, trying to absorb this, as the hunter continued. "I followed her all the way to the chamber, Elder. She knew precisely where she was going." The Elder looked at him, then to the Second and Blade, before abruptly making his decision.

"Inform the others to meet in the council chamber immediately", he instructed the hunter. The hunter bowed his head in acknowledgment and was about to leave when the Elder added "and tell them not to take any action until I get there." As the hunter left quickly, the Elder turned back to the other two Yautja.

"Does she understand what she's doing?", he asked them. The weaponsmaster growled an affirmative, and the Second allowed him to answer the question.

"Given who has trained her, I would believe so", Blade noted, a thoughtful note to his voice. "The question is, what has happened?" The Elder growled in annoyance.

"We will find out shortly."

-

The Second let out an involuntary growl of surprise as the three of them entered the main chamber through the wide doorway. If he didn't know better, he would have thought a Yautja stood in the center of the chamber. She stood motionless, her spear beside her, and they could _feel_ the energy she was giving off. Any doubts they might have had about her understanding of what she was doing vanished in an instant. The chamber was beginning to fill as the other hunters heeded the Elder's summons, and a low buzz of growls and clicks began to fill the air as they took their places around the perimeter between the four stone pillars that dominated the room.

The hunter that had told them of the human's presence was the last to arrive, hurrying into the chamber to take his place. The reason for his delay became obvious as another Yautja appeared, turning off his cloak. Her trainer approached the Elder respectfully, who inclined his head in greeting, then the two stood side by side facing her.

"Do you know what this is about?", the ship's Elder asked her trainer quietly, but received only an affirmative grunt in reply. The Elder gave a mental shrug, then addressed her.

"You have a good reason for this, I assume?"

She'd watched the Yautja enter the chamber, and could feel a trickle of sweat from her armpits run down her sides. She had been beginning to doubt the entire idea, but the memory of the look on Marisa's face kept her resolve strong, and the arrival of her trainer gave her confidence. She couldn't, _wouldn't_, mess this up. Marisa's memory and her trainer wouldn't allow it.

"Honored Elder, I do. I come to lay a challenge." There was a mutual clicking of amazement amongst the hunters in their circle around her, but the Elder silenced them with a glare. One of the hunters rose from its crouch, and the Elder inclined his head towards him.

"What right does a _pyode amedha_ have to challenge a Yautja?" She stayed facing the Elder as she responded, calmly.

"The right of any blooded hunter to challenge a bad blood." The Elder stepped backwards a step, then growled at her angrily.

"You accuse a member of this hunting party of being a bad blood?"

"I do. Earlier this day, a Yautja entered my nest, and murdered a defenseless human female there." The muttering amongst the hunters grew in volume again, and it took the Elder several pointed glares towards them before they quietened down. He took a deep breath to calm his own disquiet before he spoke again.

"How do you know it was a Yautja, or from this ship?" He was surprised when the human's trainer spoke up in answer.

"I saw the Yautja that murdered the human leaving the nest of the human after the attack. There are no other hunters on the planet save those within this chamber." The Elder looked at the trainer.

"Can you identify the Yautja you saw?" The trainer growled a negative. "Then how will we determine who it was?" The Second rose, and the Elder allowed him to speak.

"All Yautja were to remain with the ship during the day to rest prior to the hunt tonight. Did any leave when they were not permitted to?" The Elder looked to the hunter that had allowed her on board, the ramp guard for the day, and growled a query. In response, he looked across the circle at an unblooded Yautja.

"Only one did, Elder. He claimed he was investigating something he saw last night."

"I murdered no-one!" The cry surprised them all. She tensed as she heard the growl, recognizing the voice.

"_Asshole."_

She was tempted to turn and hurl her spear into him right there, but she caught the slight shake of her trainer's head and stayed still. The Elder turned towards the unblooded Yautja, snarling a question in anger.

"You left the ship?" He growled an affirmative.

"But I murdered no-one, Elder. Are you going to take the accusation of this _prey_ over the word of a Yautja?"

"You would prefer that I accuse you?", her trainer snarled, and the hunter shrank back. "Your feelings towards my prey are clear." The Elder placed a hand against her trainer's arm, and he quietened.

"It seems that only you left the ship today", the Elder said to the hunter, quietly, who growled and stood.

"I murdered no-one. I hunted a _pyode amedha ..._", he began, but she turned then, despite her trainer's warning of earlier, and spoke to him.

"You entered my nest. I would assume you thought the human in there was me, we all look the same to you after all, just _prey_. You waited until she was bathing, as far away from where my weapons were kept as possible. Then you killed her, but not with the weapons of a Yautja. Then you ran. You call this hunting?" Her voice was steady and clear, and he flinched as each point hit home like another nail driven into his coffin. Which it was. Then a thought occurred to her, and she pointed down to the skulls hanging from his waist.

"If you were hunting, why didn't you take a trophy?" He looked at her, then to the Elder. He could see that her last point had done the most damage. This _pyode amedha_ had destroyed him.

He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of witnessing his downfall. Before anyone could react, he withdrew his spear from its mounting on its back and in one fluid motion extended and threw it at her.

Her instincts kicked in before she'd even seen the move or registered on her consciousness, and her reflexes pivoted her and she dropped down to one knee, the spear passing harmlessly overhead to clatter against the far wall. Before she could rise, his weight slammed into her from one side, almost throwing her to the ground, jarring her spear from her hand, and she clenched her fists to deploy her wristblades just in time to block and prevent the ones mounted to his forearm punching through the eyeshields of her mask into her head.

She shifted her weight, letting the momentum of his impact drop her, and she rolled back up to her feet, the shift causing him to lose his balance, and before he had a chance to regain it she spun on one foot, bringing her arm around in a low arc. He saw the move in time and threw himself backwards, avoiding the bulk of the deadly twinned blades that jutted out from her arm.

As she turned again to face him, he charged her, slamming one shoulder into her chest and flinging her backwards into one of the pillars with a sickening crack, the Yautja on either side scrambling to their feet to get out of the way. He bore in, his fist raised to drive the blades into her and finish this, but she kicked out with one foot, connecting with his knee just as it straightened. Hyper-extended, it stood no chance against the force of the blow and collapsed from under him, dropping him to the ground as he fell forwards, slamming his mask against the pillar.

She rolled out of range of his arm as he flailed towards her, trying to breathe only to be rewarded with a sharp stabbing pain on one side of her chest. He'd broken a rib, at the minimum. She stepped back warily, trying to catch her breath, and he levered himself up from the floor, using the pillar for support. As he turned towards her, she could see that his mask had been scratched badly when he'd hit the pillar, and the eyeshield on one side looked cracked.

The others watched the battle with interest. None of them had seen a human face off against a Yautja before, although they knew humans had, rarely, won in such fights in the past. The thought of coming to the aid of either combatant didn't even enter their minds, although if there had been a telepath close by, they might have been surprised that all of the hunters were hoping the human would win. Distracted by the fight, none of them noticed a ship display on one wall blinking insistently.

His technique was sloppy, his rage had robbed him of any thought of finesse, or even basic tactics she could tell. He wasn't trying to hunt her, he was simply trying to kill her. Her mind flashed back to the words of her trainer, echoed only the other night by Blade - "If you hunt from anger or fear, you will lose". Either no-one had bothered to give her opponent the same advice, or more likely he'd forgotten. She dodged under the wide grab of his arms, and ducked forwards, dragging the tips of the blades on one arm along the forearm his computer was mounted on, and the straps holding it in place parted easily.

As he flinched, trying to prevent his flesh from suffering the same fate, he pivoted faster than she expected and slammed his fist into her spine, driving all the air from her lungs and sending shooting daggers of pain through her chest from her damaged ribs. The strip of armor protecting her spine absorbed most of the blow, but she still went flying forwards once more to slide along the deckplates, colliding with something on the way. She grabbed at it instinctually, and discovered it was her spear, dropped in the initial onslaught. She rolled onto her back, bringing the spear up and he almost ran himself onto the point before he was able to stop his forward rush towards her.

He backed up warily and she regained her feet, keeping the tip pointing towards him as she caught her breath. He tried to feint around the spear, but she countered easily, the tip tracking him every time.

"Why?", she gasped out. He stood still for a moment.

"You are not Yautja, you are only _pyode amedha_. I don't answer to _prey_", he snarled at her, before knocking her spear out of line with his wristblades. Before she could bring it back around he was on her, his balled fist slamming into her mask dead on. She felt the impact push her mask back into her face, and the burning pain there told her that her nose had been broken. Stunned, she staggered backwards, her turn to flail her arms, the move making him step back to avoid the spear tip wildly swinging in front of him.

She tried to shake off the ringing in her head from his punch, and a sudden realization came to her. He was _right_, she wasn't Yautja - she was something else. She was trying to fight him as Yautja, but she couldn't win that way. She made a quick decision, and stepped backwards deliberately, keeping the spear pointing towards him, until she was back in the center of the room. As she came to a halt, she drew herself up, ignoring the pain that caused from her ribs, and let out a scream – a hunter's scream. All of the hunters were stunned by the call, her opponent most of all, and as he stood there trying to understand she threw her spear to one side.

She flexed her wrists, making the blades strapped to each forearm to rotate around the housing within each vambrace until they lay against the underside of her forearms, as she bent down and slowly withdrew the long jagged blades from their sheaths in her calf armor. Not taking her eyes off the Yautja standing uncomprehendingly before her, she straightened up and swung the blades once, twice in her hands, before crossing her arms in front of her.

"Let's dance, asshole", she growled, and with an answering roar he charged towards her. She watched, her mind evaluating his steps, the reach of his arms. She was once more in that curiously detached state of mind, but it felt different somehow. She allowed her instincts to control her body and as he came within range she swung easily to one side, bending one knee to lower her body. The move caused him to pass to one side of her, and when he managed to stop his charge, she was back upright, facing him again, her arms across her chest.

The honed edges of both blades now wore a thin layer of neon green blood.

He looked at her, then down at his body to see the twin thin lines scored through the pale flesh, before he looked up at her and roared again. As he charged once more, she pivoted on the balls of her feet, turning away from the blades on his wrist as they cut through the air towards where she had been standing and bringing her own blades around to carve deeply into the armor on his back as he passed with a bell-like ring. When he turned in rage, he was faced once more with her standing there easily, her blades crossed in front of her.

"Third time's the charm, asshole?", she taunted. He came for her once more, but she stood her ground. As he closed, she dropped down to one knee and he growled his satisfaction, but was cut off as she raised up, bringing her arms around and stabbing both blades into his flanks, angled upwards and piercing into his chest cavity. His body shuddered as she drove the blades in deeper until only the hilts were left outside his body, and she looked up at him.

"I told you overconfidence was dangerous", she said, softly, then pulled the hilts of the blades towards her, cutting a path through his body. As they came forwards, she crossed her arms over, bringing the blades through and around his chest and stomach until with a spray of bright green blood they were free of his body, splattering the observers as she allowed the momentum to throw her arms out wide.

She rose and stepped backwards as his body toppled backwards, bringing her arms across her chest one last time, before throwing them wide once more and screaming her victory, the pain in her chest forgotten as she released all the pent up anger and rage and devastation and loss in a cry that rattled the bones of the trophies on the walls around her, and vibrated in the bones of the Yautja.

Drained and empty, she sank to her knees, the blades in her hands dropping to the floor with a metallic clatter, and cried.

The Elder stepped forwards, extending his spear as he came towards her and the body of the fallen Yautja, but she was oblivious as he towered over her. He looked at the cooling corpse and growled in distaste before slamming the tip of his spear into the deckplates. She looked up at him.

"Your challenge is completed." He paused, then gestured to the plasma weapon on her shoulder. "That is yours now, young blood." She cocked her head, not understanding his meaning through her grief and exhaustion. "You earned it" the Elder elaborated, simply. She nodded, not really caring any more.

The Elder gestured to two of the Yautja, who came forwards and lifted the body before taking it into the depths of the ship. He crouched down in front of her, removing his mask as he did so, and she was startled to realize that he had been joined by others – the Second, Blade, and her trainer. She looked at the naked faces of each of them, but as her trainer looked as if he was about to speak, she interrupted him.

"You even think of saying that right now, there's likely to be another challenge." She smiled weakly as she said it, and the Yautja clicked laughs, her trainer loudest.

"You should consider treating your wounds first, young blood", Blade commented mildly. She looked down and was surprised to see she was bleeding from several shallow cuts across her body, she hadn't even noticed that he'd managed to reach her. She growled assent, and the Elder gestured to one of the Yautja between the stone pillars, and as he came towards them she recognized him as the ship's healer. He bowed to them as he arrived, and dimly part of her mind realized that he'd included her in his gesture of respect.

She rose and was about to follow him when she noticed the red glow of the walls dim and flicker. The others saw it too, and looked around. There was a pounding on the deckplates as one of the Yautja that had been tasked to dispose of asshole's body came sprinting into the chamber.

"There are _kainde amedha_ outside the ship, the ramp is being breached. We are being attacked!"


	20. Si uno adhuc proelio Romanos vincemus

**Si uno adhuc proelio Romanos vincemus, funditus peribimus! **

She winced as the healer pulled the wrappings tight around her chest. It had taken her a few minutes to explain to him why he shouldn't wrap them over her breasts, but once she'd shucked out of her armor to give him better access he'd understood. She'd felt decidedly strange being half naked in front of strange aliens, and with the climate-controlling undergarment of her armor around her waist, the heat and humidity of the ship wasn't feeling that comfortable.

She needn't have worried, although she might have felt insulted by the healer's opinions about all the ways her body was disgusting to his eyes. He was, however, professional and by the time he was done he had immobilized her damaged rib cage as best he could. Now all she had to do was figure out how to breathe. She thanked him for his help, even though she had wanted to kill him a few minutes earlier when he had coated her wounds with the accursed blue fluid from her medical kit. She began to re-don her armor when the weaponsmaster came into the healer's chamber, fully equipped himself with a wide array of weapons, many of which she'd never seen before.

"Are you ready to hunt, young blood?", he asked, a growl of concern in his voice. She stretched gingerly, feeling the pull of her bindings, but the pain wasn't nearly as bad as she expected. She experimentally swung her arms a little, settling her armor in place at the same time she tested her body's response to her commands, before looking towards Blade and grinning behind her mask.

"As ready as I'm going to be" she commented as she swung herself down from the examination table. She stumbled a little as she landed, and Blade reached out a hand to steady her, but she waved him off. "I'll be fine." She gathered up the weapons she had removed to get her armor off, and followed the weaponsmaster out of the healer's chamber and down a corridor she didn't recognize.

"Where are we going?" she asked, as they ascended a ramp upwards.

"The armory" was the only answer Blade gave her, not even slowing his pace. She shrugged to herself, she was used to not getting much information from Yautja, her trainer had been the same for as long as she'd known him. As they turned a corner, she let out a gasp of surprise at what she saw.

The walls were lined with every kind of weapon imaginable, and the two Yautja in there were busy selecting from the assortment on offer, clipping the pieces they selected to various parts of their armor. She stopped, trying to take in the view, and Blade turned to her, clicking impatiently.

"You can select from them as you wish, but first you need to be briefed on the hunt." She blinked under her mask in surprise, while he descended into a sunken well in the center of the room. He motioned impatiently for her to take position in a spot just opposite him, and as she did so a seat rose from the deckplates. She settled back onto the stool-like seat as it rose higher, until it stopped, leaving her a good ten feet from the deck below. The weaponsmaster gestured, and a holographic display appeared between them, much higher in resolution than the one her computer could provide. He changed the image until a wireframe of the ship and the surrounding warehouse appeared, ghostly transparent.

"The initial attack on the ramp failed, the two Yautja were able to initiate the ship's defense mechanisms and destroy several _kainde amedha_, giving them time to seal the inner door to the ship. One of them fell in the attack, we do not know how many of the hard meat were killed." She nodded as he changed the image, zooming in on the rear of the ship. Even though he had just told her that one of the hunters had died, his voice remained steady and businesslike, and she didn't offer any comment on the matter.

"Unfortunately, at the same time they launched a separate attack on the rear of the ship. We are not sure how, but presumably they used their own blood to create an entrance inside one of the drive tubes, and entered that way. The drives have been damaged, we are not sure the extent, as we sealed that section off as well." She pointed to the rear of the ship as it glowed red.

"So they're inside the ship in that area?" He growled an affirmative in reply.

"The inner doors are not as strong as the ramp door, it is only a matter of a short time before the _kainde amedha_ will breach them and begin to move through the ship." She watched as he manipulated the image to show an internal schematic of the ship, and could see the resulting access the hard meat would have once they breached the inner doors. She cocked her head as she looked over the internal layout, then looked to him curiously.

"Why are they using the corridors? There's a lot of crawlspaces and vents in that area, if I'm reading this diagram right, they could easily make it through those." In response, he zoomed the image in on one of the service crawlspaces leading from the compromised area of the ship.

"Yautja have hunted _kainde amedha_ for a very long time, young blood, and our ships are designed to prevent such things. Any space that could be so used has energy grids at intervals through them, and the insides are lined with the same resin the hard meat produce." She looked at him then started laughing, shaking her head. He looked at her and growled a query.

"Basically what you're telling me is the ship comes complete with bug screens." He growled a perfectly serious affirmative, and she laughed again, but a clicked note of annoyance sobered her. He zoomed the image out to show the ship and warehouse once more.

"Somewhere out there is the queen." The sound of her sharp intake of breath escaped from behind her mask. "The surviving Yautja from the ramp saw a glimpse of her before the inner door was sealed. The Elder believes her presence means we will be facing the entire hive. We do not know how many that will involve, though."

"So what's the plan? I've never hunted with others before, except that one time when we went after eggs." He growled in understanding, pointing to the rear section of the ship again.

"We let them come in." She looked at him, her disbelief must have been obvious even from within her mask, as he clicked a laugh. "The queen will be unable to board the ship, she will be too large. This means that we can hunt the drones she sends in to the ship. Once we have killed as many of those as possible, we can then go outside and hunt her." She nodded and growled an affirmative in the Yautja language without realizing it, but cocked her head curiously. He understood her confusion, and elaborated.

"There are only ten of us now, not enough to face an entire hive with any guarantee of destroying it. The Elder has already set the ship to self-destruct should the life-signs of all the hunters present cease. It is questionable if there are enough of us to hunt a queen as it stands." He turned the holographic display off and as the stool-like seats began to sink to the floor once more, he continued. "Separating them makes them more manageable. The challenge of taking on the complete hive is less important than cleansing the area of the _kainde amedha_ presence. " She nodded in understanding.

"So what do we do?" she asked as they reached the floor and he walked over to an equipment cupboard inset into the wall. He fumbled in one of the pouches that hung from his belt as he withdrew a strange gun shaped device from the storage locker, then turned to face her. He held up a small capsule, dwarfed between two claws.

"Do you hunt with us?" She blinked, looking at the device he was holding then to the impassive faceshields of the weaponsmaster's mask. She was ready to retort with a smart-alec response but something about the way he'd asked stopped her. She replayed the conversation they'd just had in her mind, why had he bothered to brief her if wasn't sure she was going to ... As her mind caught up with the math she understood finally. He had said there were only ten of them now, but by her count there were only eight Yautja from the ship, and her trainer, left. He'd included her in the count! She realized what the device must be.

"I would be honored to hunt with you." He purred loudly with pleasure, and she heard answering purrs from behind her. She turned slightly to see that the two Yautja who had been arming as she and Blade had entered the chamber hadn't left yet, and were voicing their approval of her decision. An inordinate sense of pride filled her to swelling, and for a moment she felt a unique kinship with these utterly alien creatures.

Blade slotted the device into the injector he'd removed from the storage compartment before pressing the business end against her abdomen, just beneath her sternum. He depressed the trigger quickly, and she felt a sharp stab as the implant was injected into her, coming to rest close by her heart.

Hers was now one of the life-signs the ship would notice the end of.

"Can we _finally_ go hunting now?", she asked, sweetly.

-

It had all seemed so simple on the holographic display in the armory. Let the _kainde amedha_ breach through the drive compartment to the rest of the ship, pick them off one by one. Just one minor problem – no-one told the _kainde amedha_ about their part in the whole process. Using the same technique to breach the hull as they had to access the drive compartments, the hard meat had broken their way through the hull on the topmost deck, in the control room, catching the hunters completely off guard. Instead of being able to face the black aliens in the confines of the one corridor from the drive compartment, the ship was now crawling with them.

She had an advantage over the Yautja at the moment, she had switched her mask to the visible light spectrum, natural for her but uncomfortable to the thermal-sensitive vision of the hunters, negating the _kainde amedha_'s lack of radiating heat as a factor. As a result, she saw the sudden shift from the corner of her eye before the alien could reach her, spinning and dropping down while extending one arm to launch the weighted metallic net mounted to the underside of her forearm at the leaping death. The ends pulled the mesh tight about its body as she rolled under it before it came crashing to the deckplates just behind her, the ends wrapping around each other like the ends of a bolas and trapping it within.

As it struggled furiously against its bondage, hissing in its rage, she rose quickly to her feet, stepping cautiously towards the writhing black mass. She removed her spear from the mounting on her thigh, squeezing the handle to extend the vicious ends, then stabbed through the alien's head before the tightening net could be melted by its corrosive blood. It gave a screech as the silvered metal penetrated through its skull into the tissue beneath, but continued to fight the net. In the end, she had to fire several of the Y-shaped barbed arrow points from the weapon underneath her other forearm into the creature's head before it finally succumbed to the damage and quivered in death, just as the net parted, destroyed by the pale black/green ichor oozing from the body.

She checked her spear tip for similar damage, but was relieved to see the resistant coating was still holding up. As she retracted the shaft and replaced it against her thigh, she slapped her other hand against the mounting that had held the net, releasing it from her arm to drop with a clatter against the deck. There was no way she could recover the net, and she had no clue how she could reload the net gun even if she could.

This was her fourth kill so far, and her second on her own. She'd been separated from the weaponsmaster during a furious melee a little while ago and one deck lower. Since then she hadn't seen any living Yautja, although she'd passed the torn remains of one a moment before - presumably he had fallen to the alien she'd just dispatched. Part of her mind wondered how many of them were left, but she put the thoughts to one side and concentrated on letting her senses search for signs of more hard meat.

She knew she was hopelessly lost as far as knowing where she was on the ship was concerned, but she allowed her senses and her instincts to guide her steps through the corridors, trusting that they might not find her rooms, but they'd find her _kainde amedha_. Her trust was proven when she entered the main council chamber, where she had killed Marisa's murderer, and came face to shiny black head with two _kainde amedha_. They paused, surprised by her sudden emergence from the side corridor they were about to enter, and she took advantage of their distraction, diving between both of them into a roll, clenching her fists to extend her wristblades as she did so.

As she passed them, she flung her arms out to either side, the blades on one forearm carving into the leg of one of her opponents, but the other missed. As the one she had injured fell to the deckplates, the other turned _fast_, but she changed her direction of roll, heading sideways, and the tail that daggered downwards to where she would have been bounced off the deck harmlessly with a ringing clang. She rolled back up to her feet just in time to block the alien's claws swiping towards her head, the impact making her arm go numb but the razored edges cutting through the wrist of the _kainde amedha_.

It reared and stepped backwards, screaming a sibilant cry of pain at its mutilation, and she swept the spear from its mounting point, squeezing it and bringing it around in a wide arc all in one movement, the tip cutting a line through the alien's bony exoskeleton, but failing to penetrate to the skin and organs beneath.

The inertia of her move swung her around so that her back was to the alien. Sensing an advantage, it ran towards her, but she pushed the spear backwards and up, the hard meat's charge driving it onto the tip and down its length. Its remaining talon scraped against her shoulder armor as the creature's arm came within range, but she ignored the attack, reaching around to the spear handle with her other hand then twisting it. The spikes laying flat along the shaft shot up at an angle, their edges carving a path through the _kainde amedha_'s body and vitals, and it screamed before collapsing to the ground.

She twisted the spear shaft again, but it refused to come free from the body. She abandoned the weapon without hesitation, moving to one side as she watched the other hard meat, the one whose leg she had cut into, staggering towards her as best it could. As the dead alien's body began to sink into the widening hole its blood was melting in the deck, she sidestepped twice more, then bent to retrieve the two blades from their homes next to her calves. Straightening up, she reversed the blades so they were resting against her forearms and assumed her accustomed guard position, arms crossed in front of her.

She was shocked when the alien suddenly accelerated. _It had been faking!_ She frantically tried to move from its path but failed, one set of talons cutting across her hip, red hot pain causing her to gasp, the sharp claws parting the alien hide that covered her waist, before the breath was knocked out of her as the alien's bulk hit her, both of them falling to the ground. She tried to bring the blades into play, but realized that if she cut into it where it was right now, its blood would fountain all over her. She turned her head to one side and twisted as the inner jaw shot forwards, passing so close to her that the vicious mouth withdrew back into the hard meat's gaping maw with one of her braids trapped between the teeth.

She screamed from the pain, wrenching her head and was rewarded by the braid, and a piece of scalp, coming away. She bent her legs, getting her feet between her and the alien, and pushed off with all her strength before it could bring its deadly weapon into play again. It fell to one side, then screeched as it overbalanced and tipped through the hole its comrade's body had left in the decking. She rolled back the other way and tried to stand, but her legs wouldn't support her weight. She sat up and slid backwards on her butt until her back was against one wall of the chamber, before taking a deep breath and examining her wound.

It wasn't nearly as deep as it had felt, the hide of her armor must have taken the brunt of the impact. Dull red blood seeped from the four straight gashes just below the horn of her hip bone, and she sighed as she reached around behind her for her medical kit. Quickly, she coated a gauze pad with the blue fluid, pressing it against the wounds to seal them closed, but she was able, barely, to prevent from screaming out. She packed the kit away and replaced it on the back of her armor, but when she tried to stand again she still felt unsteady, so rested back against the wall to catch her breath.

-

She was still there when she sensed a shadow fall over her, but she looked up into the eyeshields she had come to loathe, and perhaps love, over the past few decades. He purred a laugh as he removed his mask, glancing down at her wounds, then across to the hole beside her the alien had created. He looked back and placed one claw on her shoulder gently.

"Only you could decide to fall asleep in the middle of a hunt, surrounded by _kainde amedha_" he noted, reaching behind her to take out the medical kit she'd replaced what seemed like only moments before. As he opened the kit and withdrew one of the small tube-like injectors, she grinned at him.

"Are we having fun yet?" He bent over her and before she could object pressed the injector to her stomach and triggered it, the stabbing pain of the needle's entrance fading quickly, as she started to feel more alert. She looked at him.

"You never told me there was stimulants in that thing." He looked back at her.

"You never asked", he replied, simply. She sat there with her mouth working a few times before she slapped his shoulder. He growled in amusement, repacking her kit and handing it to her roughly, then paused.

"I am glad to find you still live." She blinked as the loop recording appended "Cally" to the end of his sentence. She inclined her head, and tried standing once more, this time finding it much easier, if she was still a little unsteady on her feet.

"Are we winning?" she asked him, softly. He looked away for a moment before growling an affirmative.

"The ship is clear of _kainde amedha_, as best we can determine." She nodded as he started leading her out of the chamber.

"Which just leaves queenie. How many of us are left?" He didn't answer for long moments, and when he did she swore she could detect a note of sadness in the tone of his voice.

"Six, now." He paused, then "The weaponsmaster is not amongst them." She stopped, staring at his back. She swallowed back tears and as he turned to face her she braced herself.

"Was his death befitting?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. He growled an affirmative, proudly, and she nodded. She didn't trust herself to say anything else, simply beginning to walk again, and he kept step with her side by side until they reached the door that led to the ramp out to the warehouse outside the ship. The other four surviving Yautja were there, various injuries treated and coated in blue. She was glad to see the ship's Elder, the Second, and the healer were three of them, but was surprised the fourth was an unblooded hunter. She inclined her head to that one deeply, growling proudly to him, and he inclined his head in return as the others looked on, checking weapons piled at their feet - They'd obviously re-equipped themselves before meeting here.

No-one commented that she was using the Yautja language, audible and body language both, but her trainer was proud of how far his protege had come in so many areas. He regretted that it had taken the loss of her friend for her to finally show the promise he had looked for for all these long years, briefly considering the rightness of his actions in setting her on this course, but banished everything from his mind but the upcoming battle. He needed to concentrate, the time for such questions would come later. If they survived.

The Second looked at her, noting the state of her armor. When he saw that she had lost her spear he reached down and took one from the pile on the floor and handed it to her. With a squeeze of her hand she tested it, before retracting it and clipping it against her thigh, satisfied. She looked over the other weapons on the floor, then pointed to the gun mounted on her forearm that fired the Y-shaped barbed arrows.

"Is there any way to reload this?" The Second growled a negative, bending down and dragging out two familiar-looking mountings.

"We do not have any additional darts for it here. Replace it with one of these, and mount the other on your other arm. They are similar to the -------- you had as a hand-held weapon before." She nodded, unstrapping the gun and letting it drop to the floor before examining the weapons he handed to her. She recognized the tip of the projectiles standing slightly proud of the muzzle of the weapon as being the same arrows she had used before, in the gun she had lost the night the _kainde amedha_ had almost killed her.

She strapped them to the underside of her forearms, making a mental note that their placement meant she couldn't rotate her wristblades as they'd been modified to do. Once she'd emptied them, she needed to remember to dump them to free her blades for their full deadly effectiveness. Most of the remaining weapons she didn't recognize and so she remained quiet, crouched down as the others prepared themselves. In what seemed too short a time, they all had joined her in a circle, and the Elder spoke.

"The queen will have _kainde amedha_ guarding her. You and you", he pointed to her and the unblooded hunter, "are to deal with them. The rest of us will concentrate on the queen herself. Once the guards are removed, and _only_ once they are removed, may you attack the queen." She growled an assent, echoed by the other hunter. This wasn't going to be a time for personal trophies, the only way to defeat the queen would be to work as a team. The most experienced Yautja amongst them would be relying on the two least experienced to keep the queen's guards off them while they fought her.

The Elder looked around the circle, gaging their readiness. Satisfied, he rose, and they followed suit. He strode to the controls at the door, pressing a sequence to raise the heavy metal shield, and as it came up they watched uneasily to make sure no kainde amedha were waiting on the other side. The coast was clear, and they walked down the ramp into the dark warehouse.

-

Once clear of the ramp they were hit almost immediately, half-a-dozen black bodies launching themselves at the hunters from the darkness. She brought her targeting system online and switched vision modes, her view of the warehouse turning a surreal green and outlining the _kainde amedha_ as the solid red lines of a target lock flashed over one. She triggered the plasma weapon, sending a ball of red fire into the hard meat, blasting it to pieces, the heat vaporizing its acidic blood before it could hit anything. The four experienced hunters ran forwards and she stood shoulder to shoulder with the unblooded one, tracking a second target then a third, rapid firing the hellish energies of her shoulder weapon into them.

She saw one of the remaining _kainde amedha_ head towards the grouped hunters, too close to fire at, and without thinking lifted one of the throwing stars from her armor and as she pressed against the center, the five clawed tips locking into position, sent it spinning in a curving arc. Their paths intersected, the star cutting through the head of the alien and a cloud of dust kicked up as it plowed into the ground. She sensed the star's return path, but she was so focused on watching for additional threats to the hunters that she didn't have time to worry about catching it, instead almost absently plucking it from the air as it came towards her.

The two hunters began to run forwards, trailing the main group towards the furious screeching at one end of the warehouse that she assumed was the queen's location. More _kainde amedha_ tried to intercept the Elder and his group, but the two picked them off before they could get close. She watched as four bolts of plasma emerged from the weapons of the main group, aimed towards one corner of the building, and she gasped as the light they produced on impact gave her the first glimpse of their enemy.

"_Oh shit. That's one ugly mother fu ..."_ she thought, but was distracted by a scrabbling above her. She moved sideways, pushing the other hunter the other way, as an alien landed between them, its claws lashing out to either side. She tried to turn away, but the talons flashed across her mask, scoring deep jagged gouges into and through the alien metal and shattering one eyepiece. As the electronics in her mask shorted out, the eyepiece exploding outwards in a shower of sparks, she grabbed the alien's arm with one hand and slammed her forearm into its elbow. There was a crack as the joint broke against the pressure, and she pulled the now limp arm towards her. The other hunter's spear tip emerged from the front of the alien's head, he had stabbed into it from behind, and it fell to the ground.

With the mask damaged, her vision was black, and she angrily pulled the connectors loose from her mask then yanked it from her face. As it cleared her eyes, she could feel the warm trickle of blood run down her cheek and her neck, but she ignored it. The darkness of the warehouse was lit up by the staccato firing of the energy weapons of the hunters, and the strobe brightness as the electromagnetic bolts struck, but unlike the way they had destroyed the drones, the queen seemed to have better resistance to the power being hurled at her.

The queen had come out of her hiding place now, and was trying to rush towards the hunters. They had split up, the distance between them making it impossible for her to attack them as a group, and as she tried to concentrate on one of them, it opened her up to the fire of the other three. With a quick glance at the hunter beside her, she started running towards the group. As she ran, she reached up to her shoulder and disconnected the weapon, dropping it to the warehouse floor. With her mask gone, she had no way to track and fire it, so it was dead weight. Likewise, without her mask she had no chance of seeing any more drones that might be guarding the queen, so she headed for the only target she could see – the queen herself.

As she ran, she threw two, three of the stars at the huge creature, watching as they each impacted against her before spinning off into the darkness. She let her instincts guide her, sensing each star as it returned to her, catching it, then sending it aloft again. She was rewarded with seeing the queen rear up as the stars chipped away at the bony exoskeleton, a chunk of the wide frilled mane behind her head coming away and spurts of dark corrosive blood pushing out from her torso from glancing blows, the _kainde amedha_ talons on the tip of each point of the stars penetrating the alien hide.

A plasma shot from the Elder, or perhaps it was her trainer, followed her stars in and scored a hit against her chest, and she could see a huge crater appear there. As she readied to throw the stars again, the queen turned to _her_, and _charged_. She kept the barrage of stars up until the last moment, then ran _towards_ the queen. As they closed, she threw her legs out from under her, dropping onto her back with a bone jarring thud, and slid in the dust and dirt. The queen's grasping arms closed impotently in the air above her, and she clenched her fists, deploying the blades mounted to her forearms.

As their combined momentum carried them past each other, she slid between the queen's legs, and raised her hands, triggering the weapons under her forearms in a continuous burst of arrow tips into the belly of the queen at point blank range, the tips of her blades cutting deeply into her, the deadly blood spilling from the wounds she inflicted dripping harmlessly into the dust behind her, and then the weapons clicked empty, and they were past each other.

Not believing what she'd just done, she got to her feet quickly. The queen's bulk meant she took a few more steps before she was able to halt her own charge, but she was not completely without weapons to bring to bear. The queen's tail swung around and almost decapitated her, she ducked underneath it and felt the gale tug her braids from the near miss. She pulled the spear from its mounting and extended it, and as the tail reached the end of its swing, but before it could make another attack, she jumped for it, bringing the spear down, through the tail and into the floor of the warehouse itself, impaling it in place and trapping the queen.

She moved to get out of range but one of the long arms of the alien swung around and crushed into her back, throwing her dozens of feet across the warehouse until she slammed into a wall. Her head cracked against the wall, her braids softening the blow somewhat but she saw stars, then mercifully, she blacked out.

-

When she woke, it was to the face of the healer bent over her, clicking and growling worriedly. Without her mask, she didn't understand him completely, but she caught fragments of what he was saying to the other Yautja clustered around her.

"... know, it could be ... or she may not ..." She raised one hand weakly towards the healer.

"I'm OK, I think. I hurt a lot, but I'm alive." He cocked his head at her, and the Elder put one hand on his shoulder. He moved to one side, allowing the Elder to move closer, and the two of them lifted her to her feet. The motion made her head swim, and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out again, but she took hold of herself and through strength of will stayed conscious and upright.

She looked beyond them and saw the bulk of the queen lying on the ground, the spear still impaled through her tail and half of her huge head missing, a hot glow around the edges where it had been blasted. The body was already beginning to sink rapidly into the hole in the ground her blood was creating. The Elder took hold of her head and looked into her eyes, then turned away, satisfied she was conscious, before stepping towards the unblooded Yautja that had stood with her holding off the queen's guards. He had removed his mask already and stood there quietly, waiting as the others had made sure she was still alive.

The Elder reached down and unhooked something from his waist, and her eyes widened as she saw it was one of the long talons of the queen. The hunter stood proudly as the Elder clicked and growled something she couldn't understand, then raised the talon. The hunter held his ground as the Elder slowly drew the torn end of the talon across the hunter's mask, marking the italic stylized _TT_ that he had placed on her own mask an eternity ago. The Elder then raised the talon to the hunter's forehead, and she watched as he stoically remained still while the Elder burned through his skin to place the mark there as well. He had been blooded.

She growled quietly in congratulations, but stopped when the Elder turned and came back to her, holding the talon out. He growled something she didn't understand, then hesitantly raised the talon towards her. She blinked and shook her head. The Elder growled a question at her, then realized she didn't have the translator and searched his loop recordings.

"You earned it." "Take it." He played. She tried to think of a way to explain again why it was an impossibility, when her trainer stepped up to stand with the Elder, and played his own loop recording to her.

"It's yours." "Cally." She shook her head.

"Yautja are blooded, but I'm not Yautja. And anyways, people would wonder why I have a weird looking burn mark on my forehead" she pointed out, her voice quavering. Her trainer growled a negative, reaching one hand towards her and stroking the side of her neck gently.

"It's yours." "Cally." he repeated, then "No-one will notice, I promise." She looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes and she tried to make sense of what was being said. He had said she would never be Yautja, but he was telling her to accept the mark of a blooded hunter. She looked at him as the tears began to trickle down her cheeks, stinging pain as the salt entered the grooves the _kainde amedha_'s talons had made that ran from above one eyebrow, across the eye and down to her cheek. She shook her head mutely, and her trainer cocked his head. He growled something to the Elder, who inclined his head and passed the dripping black talon over.

He stepped forwards and raised the talon, and her eyes tracked its movement. She glanced around at the others and saw them standing there impassively, then back to him. With one hand, he disconnected his mask and removed it, and she looked into his deep set black eyes, then to the mark he wore on his own forehead. All her excuses went flying out of her mind, replaced by a single understanding – her trainer was saying she, a human, was worthy of being blooded.

With a quiet whimper, she gave in to the inevitable and she nodded, tilting her head to one side and bracing herself. He growled in approval and brought the talon to her neck, then fire ran across her skin as he imprinted the mark into her neck, branding her for life as a blooded hunter.

When he was done, he raised the talon high, examining the burn he had inflicted on her. It wasn't the same as the one on his head, or that he had given the Elder so long ago, which the Elder had just passed on to the hunter, although it drew strongly from that design - The same italicized _TT_ but with a horizontal line, almost an underline below, and a line either side, creating a _-__TT__-_. He had taken his mark and added to it, creating a new one – hers, and hers alone.

The Yautja raised their heads and howled their congratulations to both the newly blooded hunters, but in her heart was only sorrow that Marisa, and Blade, weren't here to witness this moment. Her trainer had done the unthinkable, and blooded her, but she wondered if the cost to her personally might be too high. She wept inside, even as she joined in with a growl of pride.


	21. Fere libenter homines id quod volunt

**Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt**

She'd tried to walk, but her legs kept buckling under her, and over her objections the healer had instructed her trainer to simply pick her up and carry her on board. He'd taken her to the healer's chamber, placed her on the examination table, and injected her with something. That was the last thing she remembered for a while.

When she woke, she found herself near-naked except for the mesh undergarment of her armor and strips of the strange animal hide, covering her chest and waist in an alien version of a bikini. She figured that was her trainer's idea, although she had no clue if Yautja understood human modesty, or if there was an analog amongst their females. The undergarment was working though, and kept her body cool and dry, leaving just her face exposed to the warm humid air of the ship.

A small mask covered her mouth and nose, allowing her to breathe cool clean air, and she recognized it as being the same device she'd needed to use if she'd spent long periods of time on her trainer's ship. Prolonged exposure to the atmosphere preferred by Yautja ended up drying out her lungs and giving her a crippling cough. Her trainer had used a similar device if he'd removed his mask for long periods of time, so she guessed that Yautja had some of the same problems in reverse.

Not willing to trust her limbs yet, she looked around the chamber by moving just her head and eyes. The first thing she noticed was this wasn't the healer's chamber, she must have been moved here while she slept under the influence of whatever her trainer had given her. She was lying on a stack of furs on what she assumed was a bed in one corner of the room, which was stark and bare. In the muted red glow from the walls, she noticed the stack of gray metal against one of the walls below a closed trophy vault, her armor. Sitting on top of the pile was a facemask, but not the same one her trainer had given her all those years ago. She remembered vividly the sparks and pain as _kainde amedha_ talons had cut through it, destroying it in the process.

She let her eyes roam over this new one, taking in the surface detailing. The same black and gray pattern the weaponsmaster had embedded into her armor was duplicated on the left side of the "face", but what a face! The eyeshields, ovoid in her old mask, were almond shaped, angled inwardly. Still opaque black, she thought she could see a shimmer of silver deep within, making looking into them appear as if she was staring into the depths of space itself and seeing the stars. The facial features were more pronounced, even looking as if the mask had cheekbones, and ended with a large raised area where her mouth and chin would sit behind. The mask was lined with symbols that she recognized as being the written language of the Yautja engraved into the surface.

On the mask's forehead, burned into the metal and highlighted in silver, was the mark. Her mark. Self-consciously she raised her hand to the side of her neck, and ran her fingertips gently across the raised acid-burned scar there, tracing out the pattern of the same symbol. She blinked as she felt the mark, it didn't feel like it had only just been applied, the skin was almost healed completely.

"_How long have I been asleep?"_, she wondered. She lay there for another ten minutes, slowly cataloging her long list of aches and pains before risking rolling over to the side of the alien bed. She swung around and tentatively put her feet on the deck, and she noticed that her bare feet could detect a slight vibration through the warm metal flooring. She wasn't sure what that meant, but she started to get nervous all the same. This _was_ a space ship, after all. Tentatively she levered herself up, until she was standing, and with no idea what she was supposed to do, or when anyone might come for her, she went exploring the chamber she'd woken in.

A door along one wall opened to her touch on the black plate beside it, revealing what she assumed was a bathroom. It had something analogous to a shower cubicle in there, at least, but the toilet (if that's what it was) had her scratching her head. Gingerly she tested the various controls until she was satisfied she'd figured out what everything in there was for, then took the plunge, metaphorically speaking, removing her undergarment and the alien hide clothes someone had provided her before taking a long, hot shower.

Unlike the massaging shower head in her apartment, this one sent solid streams of water against her bruised body, washing away a lot of the oldest blue stains from her previous injuries. Having used the blue fluid a lot over the years, she had a pretty good idea how long it took before that usually happened, and came to the conclusion it meant that she'd been sleeping for at least three or four _days_. She couldn't find anything that looked remotely like soap, shampoo, or conditioner, but the powerful jets seemed to blast much of the dirt away from her. Once she'd finished, she turned off the water and had to hold onto the sides of the stall as gusts of warm air blew against her from all directions, drying her off. _"This, I can get used to"_, she grinned to herself.

Dried and finally feeling human again, she stepped out of the cubicle gathered the clothes she'd been wearing before heading into the main chamber again. She dressed as she'd been when she'd woken, before continuing her exploration, starting at the stack of her armor underneath the trophy cabinet. She picked up the new mask, marveling at the intricacy of the decoration, and for a moment her heart ached for Blade, lost in the battle. This could have been done by the weaponsmaster's hands themselves. She turned it over in her hand and saw that the translation device was mounted inside this new version, it must have been retrieved from the old mask.

She let out a sigh of relief as she saw the translator, it meant she wouldn't be stuck trying to figure out the meaning of compound loop recordings again. Deciding quickly, she began to don her armor so she could wear the mask properly, but she was confused when she found none of her weapons in the pile save her pair of wristblade vambraces. She looked around but couldn't find them, and wondered what had happened. She thought for a moment that, since the hunt was done, the Elder had taken back the weapons she had been loaned, but she was also missing weapons that had been hers, as well as the plasma cannon from her shoulder.

She became even more concerned when she discovered that her medical kit was also missing. Her armor had to all intents and purposes been stripped to the basics, leaving her only with her wristblades. As she shrugged and wriggled to settle her armor into place, she moved her hands and wrists, testing the blades, and once satisfied hung the mask from a clip on her waist before continuing her investigation of the chamber. In the process, she discovered the trophies she had brought on board, the necklaces and strings of teeth as well as the two human skulls were also absent.

The only decoration she retained was the medallion Blade had given her, with a kainde amedha tooth either side on its pendant string. She gripped it in one hand, trying to ride the memories of the time she had spent with the weaponsmaster, and the sense of loss. She had grown to like him in the short time they'd had, even if most of the time it had been him throwing her all over the place. She missed his insights into little dirty tricks in close fighting, and as she stood there she made a silent vow to herself to practice what he had taught her, to keep a part of his legacy alive as long as she was. It was the least she could offer his memory.

She checked inside the various storage compartments against the walls, but they were empty, the same with the ones beside and under the bed. As she examined the room she began to understand how this would be a Yautja's home while on hunt. She left the Trophy Vault until near the end of her exploration, approaching it nervously. All the signs were that the chamber belonged to no-one, but her trainer had emphasized that to touch a hunter's trophies, or their weapons, without their permission would get her killed immediately, and she was nervous as she approached the plate set against the wall that would open this one.

She pressed against the plate and stepped back quickly as a seam appeared from halfway up the wall to the ceiling, and the protective shield slid outwards and then down the wall to the floor. She blinked. She blinked again. She let out a soft mewl as she stumbled backwards, her legs hitting the edge of the bed, and she fell back onto her butt staring into the storage space she had opened. It was occupied.

A _kainde amedha_ skull lay against the wall, the front pointing to the center of the space, pale bone shining in the white light that softly lit the entire area. Below it, either side of the centerline, two human skulls stared sightlessly forwards at her. Along a shelf made of some transparent material near the bottom of the vault, rows of small white teeth, bound with black cord, lay in a row.

Her trophies.

She sat there looking dumbfounded at the vault for long moments before a thought came to her, and she quickly went to the other large compartment embedded in the wall. She pressed the black panel and stepped back as another shielded area was revealed, bathed in white light.

Her weapons.

She shook her head, the answer screaming at her but she refused to believe it. This was _her_ chamber on the ship? On a _Yautja_ ship? The vibration her bare feet had felt through the decking came back to her, and she started to tremble. _"Where are we?"_ , she whimpered in her mind. She shook herself and lifted the mask to her face, pressing it tightly with one hand as she connected it to her armor with the other, and as the pressure pulled it tight against her skin she pressed against the black panels, sealing the compartments up before walking out into the corridor.

-

As she made her way through the bowels of the ship, trying to find familiar sights to get her bearings, she could see the extent of the damage fighting the _kainde amedha_ onboard had caused. None of the hunters had been unwise enough to try using their plasma weapons in such tight confines, but burnt out and shattered lighting panels on the walls as well as acid-eaten holes in the ship were testimony to violence of the battle. After several minutes of aimless wandering, she detected the growling of Yautja voices and adjusted her path to take her towards them.

As she rounded a corner, the voices stopped, as the four Yautja in the chamber turned to look at her. She recognized them all as being the surviving members of the hunting party, but she couldn't see her trainer. Unsure of where she was, she stood in the doorway until the Elder gestured for her to enter, and she inclined her head as she stepped through and looked around. The chamber was obviously some sort of communal area for the ship's company, she thought it felt like a dining hall although there was nothing readily identifiable as food on the table the unmasked Yautja were sitting at. She moved to one of the unoccupied stools around that table and sat, not sure what to do, or say.

"You slept for longer than we expected. You must have been in need", the Elder commented, growling a laugh.

"I feel much better than I have in several days, Elder, so I'd have to agree, although being able to take a shower helped a lot as well." She paused, unsure how to broach the subject, but the Second made the opening for her.

"You have been exploring your new quarters I see." She nodded, and was about to speak but he continued on. "We brought the _kainde amedha_ skull from the weaponsmaster's vault, and put it with your other trophies in your vault while you were sleeping. If you want to rearrange their placement we will understand." She looked across the table at him, then to the Elder, before looking down.

"Is something wrong, young blood?", the Elder asked, a note of concern in his voice.

"No, Elder, not wrong. I'm just confused. I don't understand why I have been given quarters, or why my trophies are there, and my weapons." She paused for breath, then blurted "Are we in space?" All four Yautja looked taken aback, and the Second cocked his head to one side, leaning forwards slightly.

"No, we are still on the planet. Why do you ask?"

"When I woke up I could feel a vibration, I thought ..." She was interrupted as the Yautja clicked soft laughs, and the Elder growled an amused negative.

"No. The ship is too damaged to make orbit, let alone travel further yet. There are still many hull breaches from _kainde amedha_ blood, and they damaged the drives. It took a lot of effort just to relocate the ship to an alternative place of concealment. The vibration you felt is the result of needing to use the planetary drive power source to maintain the cloaking of the ship." He paused, collecting his thoughts and she nodded before he went on.

"As for you being given quarters, there are several reasons. You took a blow to the head fighting the queen, and the healer wished to keep you under observation. Your other injuries too made it preferable that you not be moved but remain close to further aid should you have required it. There was also the question of how to return you to your nest, with the ship being moved." He stopped, and looked uncomfortable.

"Your trainer also raised the point that you might not wish to return to the place your friend died, not so soon." She blinked underneath her mask, surprised that he had considered her feelings that way, then twice as surprised when she realized she hadn't considered it herself. She nodded slowly.

"We will have to remain on this world for several more weeks, as you measure them. We can repair the hull damage, but the drives require parts that we no longer have replacements for. We sent a beacon requesting another ship to provide those replacements, but it will take that long at least before one will arrive. Given all of these things, I decided that it would be best if you were given quarters on board the ship, until we leave or you choose to return to your nest." He stopped then, and looked at the Second.

"Unless you choose to leave with us." She gasped as the Second's words scrolled across her line of sight. She looked around into the faces of all four Yautja, who were watching her intently. She took a deep breath, then spoke to the Elder, although her words were meant for all of them.

"I don't know what to say, what you offer is an honor beyond anything I can imagine. But right now, I truly don't know. It's all too soon, and too fast. I need to think about everything." The Elder nodded, purring with pleasure.

"A sensible course, decisions made in the heat of the hunt are not always the best ones possible." She laughed briefly.

"On the subject of hunts - since the queen is dead, does that mean the hive is destroyed?" The Elder growled uncertainty.

"She would have been unlikely to have attacked us with less than everything she had at her disposal, so the chances are high that we killed all of the current hive members. We still need to locate where the hive nested, and make sure there are no eggs or first stage organisms there. We moved the ship away from the site of the battle, even _pyode amedha_ would have seen the fight and come to investigate, so it was decided to move closer to the location the _kainde amedha_ seemed to be concentrated around." He looked at her and almost apologetically inclined his head. "That does mean we are within your hunting grounds."

She tried to understand, there was body language she wasn't familiar with present in all four Yautja, they seemed like they were nervous and tense waiting for her response. Then with sudden clarity it came to her, "_your hunting grounds_". Yautja didn't interfere in the hunting of others, even to the extent they would allow one of their number to die rather than intervene. They were worried she'd take offense that they were in an area they considered "hers" to hunt. She thought quickly, looking for the right words to use, then looked around at them before addressing the Elder.

"Honored Elder, you invited me to hunt _kainde amedha_ with you, and for a time at least I have a place with this party. I would be honored to share my hunting grounds with you all to return the honor you gave me." The Yautja all visibly relaxed, growling their pleasure.

She was rather happy with the arrangement herself. The human bad bloods were in for an interesting few weeks. If they thought she was an annoyance before, they were going to really get upset with _five_ hunters around.

-

* * *

-

They looked around the deserted building in amazement. Huge gaping craters littered the floor, turning the smooth poured concrete interior into a shattered moonscape. They were gathered around the largest of the holes, so deep it passed all the way through the foundations and showed the dirt the building had been erected upon at the bottom.

"What the hell did they use, _bombs_?", Issoti snarled as they examined the destruction. Ito crouched down at the edge of the crater, fingering the surface gingerly, as Wen looked on. Of the three, he was surprisingly the most animated, whistling in awe several times as they toured the deserted warehouse and he took in the scale of the damage.

"Or something", Ito responded, pointing to the hole. "Do you see the glassy appearance on the sides? This is the result of extreme heat. The places in the desert where they tested nuclear weapons back in the Fifties and Sixties? The sand fused into glass."

"You saying someone was throwing nukes around in here?", Wen asked incredulously, as Issoti backed away from the hole nervously. Ito chuckled at the Italian's reaction.

"If this was done by nuclear weapons, there'd be no city to begin with. You can relax, Issoti, you're not going to end up sterile." _"Unfortunately"_ was Ito's unspoken addendum.

"So what happened then, smart ass?" Issoti blustered, trying to regain some semblance of dignity. Ito rose and looked around the warehouse again, calculating. He pointed to great gashes and holes in the walls.

"A lot of firepower was used, all you need to do is look at the holes in the walls to see that." He turned, facing towards the other end of the building. "There's a lot of craters down that end, but the walls are relatively undamaged. This end", turning as he spoke he waved one hand to encompass the area they were in, "has this big hole, and a lot of damage to the walls."

"Yeah, yeah, we kind of noticed that. You going to tell us what it _means_ now, professor?" Ito turned and faced Issoti, his face expressionless.

"I would say that two factions fought here. This was possibly the base being used by one side. The other side it seems entered from the far end and attacked, firing towards their opponents at this end of the warehouse. The ones here fought back, using grenades it seems, as the attackers advanced. The grenade attacks died down as the attackers came closer, then some large explosive device was detonated here."

"There's no bodies" Wen spoke up, surprising them. As they stared at him he looked around. "No bodies, no body parts, no blood. If someone was using grenades, I'd be seeing body parts and blood." Ito shrugged.

"We found no body parts or blood the last time we saw this sort of thing." Issoti looked at him sharply.

"What do you mean 'the last time'?", he demanded angrily, but Wen started to nod his head in agreement.

"You think that the creatures were involved?" Ito nodded, and Issoti looked at the two men, his face getting redder.

"_What_ creatures? What are you two talking about?" Ito turned to face the Italian.

"The aliens that have been attacking our establishments." Issoti looked at both of them, then started laughing. Both men watched impassively until the Italian managed to get control of himself, and he looked at both of them with a mixture of contempt and amusement.

"So you're trying to tell me little green men from Mars are hitting us? I supposed all of this was caused by death rays, huh? Hey! I know! They're in search of really good dentists!" He doubled over laughing even harder than before. They looked at each other, before turning and walking a short distance away from the still-laughing mobster, and spoke in low voices.

"How long do we have to put up with this idiot?" Wen asked, glancing over at the Italian disgustedly as Ito smiled coldly.

"Are you so eager to be rid of our sacrificial lamb?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." He glanced across at the Yakuza boss. "It seems that there has been a lack of attacks recently on my places of business by these mysterious creatures." Ito nodded. "Our Italian friend seems to think I might be involved somehow, I think." Ito knew full well Wen wasn't, but he wasn't going to let go of a possible advantage he had created by saying so.

"As long as he remains in denial of the true cause of the attacks, we will be incapable of combining our three forces to deal with it." Issoti had straightened up again and was making his way across to the pair, wiping his eyes. He was about to launch into another sarcastic remark about the idea that aliens were the enemy when there was a hoarse shout from one corner of the warehouse, quickly cut off.

All three men's bodyguard details quickly surrounded them, guns drawn and pointing outwards in all directions, but there was no further sounds. After a few minutes, Ito motioned to the head of his security, a bald westerner, to investigate. They stood there for several tense minutes as he disappeared into the gloomy shadows at the end of the warehouse where the sound had come from, but relaxed slightly when they saw him re-emerge, although confused when they saw he was dragging a body by the feet.

As he came towards them, he dropped the man's legs on the floor and turned, waiting. They walked over to stand beside him, looking down at the body.

"If", Ito said to the Mafia boss, "you are unwilling to accept that as the explanation of the damage done here, will you at least accept that our opponents possess a large amount of firepower?" Issoti nodded, his face ghost white as he looked down.

"Oh, yeah, I can accept that. This place is a warzone. But little green men? Gimme a break!" Ito blinked, wondering if the man actually had his eyes open, but let it slide for the moment.

"I suggest that we relocate as much as possible to the bait house. We have nowhere else, nothing else capable of withstanding this kind of threat." Wen looked at Ito curiously, wondering what he was up to, but the Yakuza kept his eyes on the Italian, willing him to go along. He needn't have worried, the Italian was beginning to hyperventilate and would agree to almost anything if it means getting out of there right then.

"I agree. Let's make the damned thing Fort Knox, see how well these things do trying to hit that!" Ito looked to Wen, who nodded agreement. Ito turned to the head of his security team and pointed to the body.

"Take him to the bait house, and make sure he's left in a secure place. I will join you there shortly." The balding man nodded once and gestured to one of his men to stay, as the three bosses headed towards the exit, their bodyguards forming tight circles around them. In a short time the only ones left in the warehouse were the two bodyguards and the man on the ground.

And the pale eight-legged creature that covered the man's face, pulsing gently.


	22. Boni pastoris est tondere pecus non

**Boni pastoris est tondere pecus non deglubere**

It took them another day to locate the _kainde amedha_ nest, following the trail left by the hard meat as the entire hive had made its way to where the ship had been previously. They had traced the hive's origination back to a partially demolished building, she couldn't tell if it had been offices or apartments, the trail leading to a crumbling hole in one wall, leading to the basement level.

"What is it with hard meat and basements?" she mused aloud, and the Second clicked a laugh at her.

"They like the dark, it enhances their natural advantages. They are primarily nocturnal creatures, their evolution has adapted them to optimize their abilities in that respect" he noted in a semi-lecturing tone. They were all checking their equipment before entering the hole, not knowing what they'd find inside. She shook her head.

"That might explain why they don't radiate heat. Thermal eyesight would be one of the ways something adapted to the dark would see. But that means they evolved to avoid ..." She paused, looking at the Yautja speculatively. "Just how long have Yautja hunted _kainde amedha_?"

"Longer than the recorded histories of _pyode amedha_. Old histories speak of another species roaming the stars that used _kainde amedha_ as living weapons, transporting the eggs in their thousands to the worlds they wished to destroy, seeding the planet." She stood, gaping at him.

"Someone deliberately wiped out planets with those things?" she asked, incredulously. He growled an affirmative, and she returned with a growl of disgust.

"We do not know if they had a method of controlling the _kainde amedha_ after they infested the planet, or could halt the infestation. We only know that we do not have those abilities, and so we are cautious about those planets we introduce _kainde amedha_ eggs on for hunting. That is why the Elder was willing at the beginning to take chances he would not normally have taken with honored _prey_, controlling the infestation took priority over everything else." She nodded, loosening the stars on her harness so they'd deploy faster.

When the hunter, the one she had worked with to keep the queen's guards from reaching the experienced hunters, had described her actions during the battle, she had refused to believe him, until his version of events was confirmed by the others. She had been so deeply into the headspace of a hunter that her reactions and instincts had driven her with confidence to use the throwing stars, yet she hadn't even noticed.

She had made the mistake of mentioning out loud that she wondered if she could do it again, and had been taken off the ship to find out, there and then. She had been terrified at first, but after nervously throwing a star, she had managed to catch it. After a few tries, her confidence built and she was soon throwing and catching them with familiarity, to the purrs of pleasure from the hunters.

"So what happened?" The Second cocked his head at her. "To the aliens that were using the hard meat as super soldiers", she elaborated, and the Second nodded in understanding.

"We do not know, the histories that record the hunts say they became hard, then eventually impossible, to find. Only a few derelict ships have been found over time to remind us of them. It was from one of those derelicts the first _kainde amedha_ eggs were taken for the Yautja to hunt, and ever since then they have been a self-renewing source of _prey_. We do not know if the _kainde amedha_ ever had a homeworld, but we have found many worlds they were seeded on that they have made their own, so perhaps it is unimportant."

She shook her head, trying to keep up with what she was being told. The Second was talking about an alien race that deliberately used _kainde amedha_ in war so matter-of-factly that shivers ran up her spine. It was another highlight of the fundamental differences between her and the Yautja. At the same time, she understood why the Yautja had sought out the hard meat soldiers for _prey_ - anything used for such a purpose would be (and was) a challenge worthy of the proud hunters.

Then they were cloaked, through the hole, and into the basement of the building, and she began to think she understood how that might be. This was her first foray into a nest, all her encounters with _kainde amedha_ to this point had been out in the open, relatively speaking. The first thing she noticed was the efforts of the mesh undergarment she wore kicking up to insulate her from the oppressively higher heat and humidity that filled the rooms they walked through.

She wondered how the temperature could be so different from the chilly winter air outside, but in the heat sensitive mode of her mask's vision amplifiers she could see that the dark resinous material coating most every surface had a higher heat than she expected. Cautioned at the start of the descent into the building not to speak, she filed her curiosity to a corner of her mind and focused on the task at hand, switching her vision mode from the distorted green-outlined one _kainde amedha_ would appear in to the heat sensitive one, sometimes using the visible light spectrum as well.

The beginning wasn't so bad, but as they penetrated deeper into the nest, she began to see the entombed corpses of hosts, coated in more of the resin the kainde amedha exuded so copiously and fastened securely to the wall. On the floor before each corpse, coated in alien mucous, sat rows on rows of leathery eggs, their tops opened up in the past to release the parasitic facehuggers inside. Close by most of them, the skeletal remains of the spindly eight-legged lay where they had fallen off to die, their grisly task completed.

She was surprised as they came across many dead humans that did not share the same characteristic outward explosion from their chest, the great craters in living tissue the _kainde amedha_ young caused in their hosts at birth, as the rest, and eventually she touched the Second on the elbow, pointing to this with a silent question asked by cocking her head to one side. He stepped up close to the bodies she had indicated, and then pointed to her mask, tracing a shape with one clawed fingertip in the air. He repeated the gesture twice more before she realized what he was telling her, and she glanced at the display inside her mask until she located the icon that matched the symbol he was describing.

As she looked at the icon, her vision mode changed, and she almost gasped out loud as her mask began giving her images of inside the torsos of the hapless people forever locked into the walls of the alien nest. She could see the lifeless coiled snake-like forms of _kainde amedha_ young in all whose chests were still intact, in various stages of growth. The juveniles had died before they could burst forth from their hosts. Briefly she considered the possible reasons, but she was no expert on alien physiology so gave up. The time for such questions, and perhaps even answers to them, would come later. She switched her vision modes one more and continued scanning.

They were all surprised when they started to come across the bodies of _kainde amedha_ deeper inside the nest, though. For a time, she wondered if, when the queen had died, these other drones had died as a result, even miles away as they had been. But that theory was quickly discounted by the age of some of the dead black bodies, some already showing signs of decay. The entire nest, to her, seemed filled with the feeling of being ... wrong, somehow. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but even with no experience she could sense that the nest, the hive itself, had been in trouble. She could feel the unease of the hunters around her, they could feel it as well.

Moving quickly, wanting to be able to finish clearing the nest and get out of the foreboding atmosphere that pressed down on them like a palpable weight, they entered the center of the basement, the place the queen had made her own. To one side was the long egg sac that had once been attached to the queen's underbelly, looking like a discarded chrysalis, but there was no other sign of _kainde amedha_, eggs, facehuggers, or anything else. The nest was completely deserted, as dead as its ruler.

The Elder motioned to her to stand beside him, and as she did so he handed her a flat rectangle, screens set on one face that she saw were similar to the display on the Yautja computer buried underneath the armor and overlay on her right thigh. She looked at the Elder, who growled softly to her.

"No _pyode amedha_ can be allowed to discover this place. The existence of the hard meat, and the Yautja, must remain secret. This is your homeworld, your hunting grounds. The final destruction of the _kainde amedha_ threat here is yours to perform." She looked around, and a shiver went through her. He'd just handed her a bomb. If she set it off, she had no idea if any innocents might be caught in the blast, how far the blast might travel. But she also knew the Elder was correct – humans couldn't be allowed to find out how close they'd come to mass extinction at the hands of aliens.

She took one final look around the cold dark room, imagining how many lives had been lost because of the predations of its previous occupants, and with that thought, she triggered the timer on the bomb the Elder had handed her, before tossing the device towards the egg sac, the faint beeping emanating from it counting down the moments before cleansing fire would burn away the legacy of the queen and her offspring. As one, the five of them turned and started running back towards the exit, stepping over the litter and debris of the nest.

Once outside the basement, she paused to catch her breath, but realized her four companions weren't slowing down, continuing instead to run away from the building. Her mind flashed back to the destruct device mounted on the wall of her hidden closet and how she had wondered just how destructive it might be ... the one she'd just casually set to detonate in the nest was a large sized case. She caught up with the Yautja in moments, before beginning to accelerate past them.

Even with the longer delay on the charge, they were still perilously close to the blast radius, and the hot wind that traveled ahead of the blast knocked her to the ground. She rolled over onto her back and watched the red and blue ball of energy devour everything in its path, turning what had once been an alien nest, the building whose basement the nest had been in, and a few surrounding buildings for good measure into dust floating through the air.

Once the ground had stopped moving quite so much, she shakily got to her feet and looked around. She spotted the four Yautja crouched a little distance ahead, and jogged across to them. She grinned behind her mask.

"_Urban renewal, Yautja style"_, she thought to herself, but didn't want to interrupt the healer, who was already speaking. She crouched down with them and listened as the healer continued.

"If they were affected from gestation by the drugs of this world, then the queen would have been flawed as well. That might account for the failure of some of the young to thrive." The Elder looked across, cocking his head.

"What of the _kainde amedha_ inside the hive that had achieved adulthood?" The healer clicked the Yautja equivalent of a shrug.

"Given the state of some of them, I do not believe it was a result of the queen's death. That would leave the same answer as the probable cause – they were flawed by the state of the original hosts. In effect, they may have died of natural causes. The generations were flawed because their root progenitor was flawed, each subsequent generation may have been more damaged."

The healer's theory did have a lot going for it, and would explain why the size of the hive had been smaller than expected, given how the length of time it had to grow in numbers. She was oddly grateful to those anonymous junkies that had been the original hosts. Their imperfections had tainted the _kainde amedha_, and as a result the infestation had been brief, but controllable.

With a possible explanation to the anomalies that had plagued the hunt to date in hand, and the nest destroyed, the remainder of the cleanup, as the Elder explained, would be to ensure there were no eggs still out there. The presence of eggs outside the nest, which she had been part of destroying, was of concern, and he wanted to make sure there were no other caches of eggs that might be stumbled on by unwary humans..

With the details resolved, it was time for the hunting to begin. The Yautja listened eagerly as she recounted information about mob houses she knew of in the area.

-

* * *

-

They should have designed the mask better, she decided. It wasn't that it was inefficient - on the contrary it worked perfectly, providing her with sweet fresh air on the ship while she had her mask off. The difficulties began with such times mostly being when she was curled up underneath the furs of various alien creatures on her bed trying to sleep – she always ended up knocking the mask off as she tossed and turned.

The healer hadn't been able to come up with anything that was much use as a solution, so in the end, after her second night of waking to a hacking dry cough because she'd managed to dislodge the mask, she decided it might be time to go in search of a drugstore and throat lozenges. That however posed its own problems, not least of which was she only had her armor to wear. No matter how laid back people were, someone was likely to raise an eyebrow. There was also the matter of getting food she could eat – after many attempts with the various foods the ship was stocked with, the only thing that didn't make her retch violently was a thin emergency food wafer, not exactly appetizing.

But the solution to these things would mean returning to her nest ... her _apartment_, she corrected herself absently.

It wasn't that she'd have to face ... well, she wouldn't see anything. That was why her trainer had arrived at the ship later than she, he was ...

He'd told her that he'd treated her with respect due to the friend of a blooded hunter. She didn't ask him what that meant, but she knew at least her friend's head wasn't going to end up decorating someone's trophy vault. And Yautja were masters at concealing their presence, and the evidence of their hunts, so she knew that, when she got there, nothing would seem amiss.

But it was still where Marisa had died. She wondered how much responsibility she bore for that. What had started as regret her friend wasn't present to see her being blooded was rapidly turning into full blown guilt thinking that Marisa was dead purely because ...

She had to stop thinking like that. She'd warned her friend off, tried to tell her it was dangerous, but she'd been rebuffed each time. Marisa was ... had been ... a big girl, she made her choice. She debated asking her trainer where he had taken the body, so she could say goodbye to her friend properly, but he had left shortly after he had blooded her, heading offworld to take the beacon requesting replacement parts for the ship into a more traveled region of space. Even now she was blooded, she realized he would still simply come and go as he pleased, without warning.

As she stood in the doorway from the balcony, none of it made any difference. She breathed slowly, trying to keep everything under control, and entered. She avoided looking at the bathroom, its door wide open, instead trying to remain focused on what she was there to do. She reached the bedroom and started removing her armor, opening the hidden closet and allowing the security device on the wall to scan her. She looked at the weapons arrayed there, debating if she should take them back to the ship later, but in the end she decided not to, not until she'd made her decision.

"_They invited me to leave with them_", she thought to herself, still not quite believing it. Everything she thought she knew about Yautja culture was being tested to the edge. Her trainer had explained to her how Yautja would treat her, blooded or not – the majority of them would see her the same way Asshole had, as _prey_. She would be challenged almost constantly.

Then there was the question of the Elder's place and reputation. Yautja fought, in some cases literally, for places on board the ships of the best Elders, to be a part of that Elder's "clan", she'd been taught. That this one had attracted Yautja of the quality of the Second, and of Blade, showed he was well respected, probably having a high rank amongst the ships and clans of the Yautja. What would the presence of a _pyode amedha_, one who was considered a hunter, do to that reputation?

She had hunted with them, and earned their respect. The once unblooded hunter she had pushed aside as a _kainde amedha_ had tried to ambush them during their fight with the queen had been the one to replace her mask. When she asked him why, he had simply raised a medallion from under his armor, a twin to the one Blade had given her. He had been apprenticed to the weaponsmaster, and as he explained it, replacing her mask was proving he was in his own way carrying forwards the legacy of the proud Yautja hunter that had taken her armor and helped her to make it her own. It was also an act of gratitude for her saving his life in the fight. And he hoped it would help her if he ever had the opportunity to hunt her.

For the young hunter, it had seemed obvious, and she saw in his explanation the complexity and simplicity that bound Yautja together in tradition. It was making more and more sense to her with each passing moment, and she felt at home and comfortable with it. It was short, brutal, violent. It was open, honest. She was making those traditions her own, as her trainer had intended, blending the two societies together in her own mind and behavior. Not completely human, not completely Yautja.

She looked at herself in the mirror, the first time she had looked at herself since the fight. She drew closer, her eyes wandering over the reflection of the scars she had obtained over the years, some of them fresh and still showing blue from the alien medicine. From just above her eyebrow on one side, down across her eye so close it had nicked her eyelid, ending on her cheekbone, the two sliver scars the _kainde amedha_ had given her when it shattered her old mask still showed a faint taint of blue.

And in her reflection she understood the challenge she had trained so long to become – was she greater than the sum of her parts?

She sighed, deeply, before straightening up.

"I won't let you down, love. I won't let any of them down" she whispered quietly into the empty room. "I'm more than human, more than Yautja. I'll make you all proud, I swear."

She sorted through her clothes, selecting the ones she'd take back to the ship, to _her quarters_. She sighed as she realized that almost all of it would need laundering before she could wear it around the sensitive sense of smell the Yautja possessed. She left the bedroom, a basket full of clothes in her arms, but as she was about to leave to head to the laundry room, she glanced around the apartment and her eyes fell on the paper bags still on the countertop by the kitchen. Marisa had left them there after putting the groceries away, before taking her shower. Before she had died.

"I swear, love" she whispered again, then braced herself and headed to do mundane things in a real world she didn't really belong to any more. In the back of her mind, she began to seriously consider the possibilities ahead of her and the chance to leave all of this behind that had been offered to her.

-

After she had packed the clothes she had brought with her into the storage compartments in her quarters and chewed on one of the cough drops she had purchased from the local pharmacy, she removed most of her armor and weapons before heading to the chamber she had met the other hunters in before. As she had guessed, it was a place for the crew to eat, and since it had cold storage available she had brought some food from her fridge as well. She hadn't figured out a way to bring her coffee machine with her, however - there was no way to plug it into anything - and the Yautja didn't have anything analogous.

She was surprised to find all four hunters there, she had arrived after dark and had expected them to all be out hunting again tonight. She'd planned on joining them once she'd had a chance to experience the marvelous massaging shower feature again. She quickly stowed her food in the appropriate place and took her place at the table, looking at each of them before speaking up.

"What's wrong?" The Elder looked over at her.

"We do not know. All of the places you told us of have been deserted tonight, some appear to have been abandoned sooner." She cocked her head to one side, as she thought quickly. Why would ... oh!

"Before you invited me to hunt _kainde amedha_, I had heard from one of the human bad bloods that they were reacting to my hunting, and were moving a lot of their operations to somewhere else. Perhaps they have finished that move and closed the other locations as no longer necessary?" The Elder considered this for several minutes before looking at her seriously.

"You must always take steps to ensure you do not over-hunt an area, young blood. Too much _prey_ taken from one place always results in the _prey_ moving, making it harder to find them." She was about to ask him what he meant when she realized that he was simply teaching her another facet of hunting. To him, that the _prey_ was the human equivalent of bad bloods, those Yautja that were dishonored, meant nothing. It was simply a reaction of _prey_ to an area becoming too lethal for them. She growled an affirmative in response, as she had been doing the past few days instead of using human language if she knew the correct sounds to make, and they were ones her human physiology could produce.

"I know where the new location is supposed to be, Elder" He looked at her in surprise, then clicked in approval.

"We should go scout it to find why the _prey_ believe it safer for them, first. Then we can hunt."

-

"Well that's why they decided to move here, I guess" she sighed. The five hunters were on top of a roof a few blocks away from the new building, and it was obvious to all of them why the humans believed themselves safer here. The building was the modern day equivalent of a fortress.

When Ito had suggested the bait house, his original intention had been to select a building that would work as a trap. Now that they were using it as a bunker out of fear, the advantages that had been designed into the disused data center for protection against disasters, natural or man made, were now exploited for protection against another sort of disaster – the Yautja.

Several stories tall, the building was completely windowless, and scans with her mask showed the walls to be heavily reinforced concrete with only two heavy steel-reinforced doors for entry. The building had been meant to house computers, not people, so the lack of exits wasn't a priority for the designers, it seemed. As they crouched on the roof top watching the building, they were able to detect a large number of guards, all heavily armed and patrolling the building at irregular intervals. She counted at least fifteen guards on the outside alone, and the heavy construction meant that the inside was too shielded for scanning with the limited abilities of Yautja facemask technology – there was no way of determining how many more were housed inside.

"I get the distinct impression I managed to really piss them off, I think. There's no way I could have hunted in there" she muttered. The Elder growled a laugh.

"Do you always give up your hunts so easily, young blood?" She bristled, but she could hear the tone of amusement in his voice and that prevented her from retorting hotly to the perceived insult. The Elder looked over the building once more, then gestured to all of them to return to the ship.

"You have something in mind?" she asked him as they were descending to street level. He clicked a laugh at her in reply.

"Tomorrow we shall hunt there." She blinked under her mask, but he made no effort to expand on his plan, so she paced along with the others, frustrated but with excitement building inside her. The Elder seemed too amused by the situation to not have something spectacular in mind.


	23. Igne natura renovatur integra

**Igne natura renovatur integra  
**

The shock of the landing jarred her, despite the absorbent foam surrounding her. The capsules had punched through the reinforced concrete-and-steel room of the building without much more effort that then would have needed to penetrate dirt. Looking like sycamore-seeds drifting in the wind, albeit at phenomenal speeds, the capsules had been brought to a halt before they went straight through the building and into the foundations by a series of vanes that spread from their upper surface during the descent. It had been the vanes catching and holding into the roof, then several of the floors below as the capsule crashed through, that had been the most turbulent part of the whole trip down.

This had been the Elder's plan, and source of amusement. The Penetrator capsules were the usual way large hunting parties sent individual or small groups of hunters to a planet's surface, removing the need for a large ship trying to land inside the hunting grounds and risking alerting the _prey_. They were designed to insert hunters into many different environments, some inimically hostile to most anything, and in that regard they were perfect for this. Mere _pyode amedha_ reinforced construction was no barrier to the Penetrators, and in one fell swoop, the hunting party had not only bypassed the hardened construction, but the security outside as well.

Once the capsule had stopped moving, she pressed against the back wall with her hand, the only part of her that wasn't cocooned by the protective foam, tripping the switch plate placed there for just this purpose. In an instant, the foam evaporated, the capsule filling with some gas rendering it into nothingness, but she wasn't concerned, her mask continued to provide her with her oxygen needs, At the same time, the front of the capsule separated forcefully, falling away to land on the floor in front with a clang.

She stepped out of the capsule, already cloaked, her senses alert, her sensors scanning even more so, and spotted a crawling movement over to one side. She saw no other threats in the area, so she took her time walking over to the man, who looked to be in shock from having a two-story dagger of alien metal come in through the roof. She felt no pity for him, or hatred for that matter. She knew that there would be no innocents in this place, only _prey_.

With a clench of her fist, the wristblades on her right wrist shot forwards and she turned off the cloak, shimmering into view before the man, who simply looked through her, gibbering. With one quick flash of silvered blades, a sheet of red splashed against the nearby wall. She left the body where it fell, unmolested. She intended only certain trophies this hunt. The others had been told what to look for, and asked to leave those she had described alone. They were hers. They'd readily agreed, there would be more than enough trophies to satisfy even four Yautja when this night's hunting was done.

As she looked around, locating the door out of the room her capsule had deposited her, she admitted to herself that the plan to use this as a trap for her had been a pretty good one - once upon a time. This would have been a trap that would have snared her easily, if she'd even managed to get this far. That was the old hunter, however – _pyode amedha_, ill equipped, and ill-prepared. Against her now - a blooded hunter clad in the armor of the Yautja, finally accepting of herself - the trap seemed childish, almost no challenge.

Orienting herself from the schematics of the building they had studied, produced in hologram on the Yautja ship by its sensors after a cloaked fly-by earlier, she headed towards the nearest stairwell, cloaking herself once more and loosening the bindings that held her various weapons to her armor so she could use them quicker. Alarms started belatedly going off throughout the building, but they were far, far too late.

-

"God dammit!" Wen yelled as he surveyed the damage. One of the alien Penetrator capsules had punched through the rooms he had appropriated for his own within the fortified building, and as the alarms began blaring their warning he looked through the cloud of dust that had once been steel reinforced concrete floors and ceilings trying to locate the rest of his people.

Quickly he rounded up a handful of the touch and brutal Tong members, and they slowly approached the gaping hole ripped in the floor of what had been his large personal suite. Torn reinforcing bars jutted up at warped angles, forming a perimeter of jagged iron around the hole, and as he peered tentatively over the edge he could just see the dull gray alien metal of the capsule a level below, the retarding vanes spread out to hold it from falling further. Wen blinked as he thought he saw movement in the shadows, but without warning three tight laser-red beams glittered in the dust and darkness, coming to rest on one of his men on the other side of the hole.

He watched in shock as a bolt of red energy came blasting up from below, turning the man across from him into a rapidly expanding cloud of superheated steam and blood, and he fell backwards and scrambled further way from the hole while the red beams tracked onto another of his men, slow to realize the danger, before another glowing bolt of death followed with similar results.

"Out! Get out!" Wen screamed, clambering to his feet and running towards the doorway. He could hear the sizzling of ionized air behind him time and again, feeling the floor jump as the edges of the energy bolts skimmed across the edges of the hole, but his men had finally realized the danger and were skirting the gaping maw leading down into hell as they followed their leader out.

Once beyond the doorway, he quickly took stock of his remaining effectives, slamming his fist into his other hand in rage when the count came up much shorter than it had before entering the room. He whirled at a scrabbling noise from the corridor beyond, raising the large bored pistol he had brought with him when they had relocated to their new headquarters a few days before, but relaxed when he saw a handful more of his men. His face brightened when he saw the long tube one carried cradled in his arms, the diamond-shaped warhead of a rocket propelled grenade showing at one end.

He motioned to his people, and they formed a wedge around him before the group moved purposefully down the corridor towards a stairwell.

"Whatever the fuck that was, it's gonna to regret dropping in on us" he snarled, half to himself.

-

Issoti rocked frantically back and forth, sitting on the edge of the folding frame bed that had been set up for him when they had taken this wing of the building for his area. Barely able to contain his bulk at the best of times, the hinged metal joints creaked ominously in time with the the strain of his weight in motion. Most of his crew had run when the building had shook as the Penetrator capsules came crashing down through the roof, leaving him with a brief handful of nervous looking mobsters forming a loose circle around him, guns drawn and pointing at nothing in particular.

"There ain't no such thing as aliens, there ain't no such thing as aliens" he muttered hysterically, his eyes wild. "It's some new S.W.A.T. Team thing, they must have used explosives to come in through the roof. "There ain't no such thing as aliens!"

His men eyed each other nervously as their boss' voice rose before he was reduced to simple gibbering. Their loyalty, such as it was, was being tested to the extreme by staying with him, and they might have been forgiven for being more interested in the added security of their numbers than any desire to protect him from whatever it had been that had broken through their defenses with such ease.

The air had been filled with the brief faint screams of men and women, coming through the hastily barricaded door. A few times there had been frantic hammering knocks on the thick wood, but none of them had dared to go near the furniture stacked high blocking it from opening to even risk calling to find out who it was, and soon the knocks had stopped coming. None of them felt any remorse that their friends and colleagues might be dying as a result of their hasty attempt to protect the room, not that friendship was a concept that came to them easily in the first place.

They looked nervously at their boss, wondering if they'd made the right choice. He had obviously lost it, cracking up completely, but his people had spent so long in an organization that didn't exactly encourage independent thought that none of them was willing to step up and take charge. As the wall to one side of the door exploded inwards, showering them in a rain of molten concrete and plaster, their choice became obviously the wrong one.

Issoti squealed at the noise, shielded by distance from most of the debris. Two of his guards weren't so lucky, liquid splinters of stone and wall shredding them in an instant. The rest instinctively brought their weapons up to point at the hole, but before any of them could recover from their surprise the Second was on them.

As he jumped through the hole, the Second realized that the dust from the exploding wall, kicked up by the explosion when he had used his plasma weapon to make an entrance to the room, was swirling around him. For a moment he cursed himself for forgetting that, even cloaked, he could be spotted by the disturbance of his passage through the vaporized material. Not realizing the humans inside were still yet too distracted to take advantage of this, he raised his arm and snapped off two quick shots, the Y-shaped arrow tips from the weapon in his hand cutting through the air to slice through the flesh and bone of one human's chest.

The human went down, and he tracked on the other five in the room. One was unarmed, and he discounted that one to concentrate on the other four, who had regained their senses enough to fire wildly towards the hole he had made. Safely out of the path of the bullets, he paused to evaluate the situation and decide how to take them. He noticed that the instinct of _pyode amedha_ to group together, for safety in numbers, had made the four bunch together, and he briefly considered using the disc hanging from his belt, one throw and it would cut through two of them in one pass. He mentally shook his head, that would be too easy, if rather elegant, instead walking towards the four.

As he drew closer, he turned off his cloak, and as the eyes of the humans widened in fear he clenched his fist, deploying his wrist blades and driving them into the stomach of the nearest human, the uppercut motion of his strike lifting his _prey_ off its feet with a choking cry. The other three humans turned and began firing towards him, but their bullets mostly hit the prey impaled in front of him on the jagged blades. Those few that reached him sparked as they ricoched off his armor, leaving bright gashes in the dull gray metal.

He growled angrily, these humans were no challenge if they were this stupid. With a shake of his arm, he threw the body of the _prey_ from the blades towards the three remaining armed humans, and roared his annoyance. The three humans tried to dodge the corpse of their colleague, but only one managed to avoid the two hundred pounds of dead weight, the other two going down underneath the blood remains. The one fortunate enough to get out of the way froze as the bone-chilling sound of the hunter's roar reached him, and then was dead himself, his head rolling onto the floor with a hollow thud.

The Second turned towards the remaining two armed humans, trying to extricate themselves from underneath the body he had hit them with, and strode over, removing the spear from the back of his armor as he did so. He placed one foot on the neck of the nearest human then cocked his head towards the other, ignoring the feeble struggles and flailing hands hitting his shins of the hapless _prey_. With disgust, he flexed the handle of his spear, and as it extended to its full length one end slammed through the other human, penetrating deep into the concrete floor. As blood gushed from the human's mouth, he retracted the spear, then extended it again, this time through the man's head.

He looked down to the man under his foot, the heat sensitive vision of his mask revealing the bulging eyes and skin growing colder from lack of blood and oxygen, and he leaned forwards slightly until he heard the distinctive crack of the man's neck snapping and the body went limp. He lifted his foot and turned towards where the fifth man should have been, but found the room was now devoid of living humans, the last one had had escaped while he dealt with the armed _prey_. He let out a roar of anger towards the ceiling, were there no challenges this hunt?

-

The sound and vibration throughout the building had reminded Ito of an earthquake he had once felt, when he had visited Japan as a youth. But he knew this wasn't an earthquake. He had been expecting the creatures to attack in some unexpected way, and had planned for most of the contingencies he could think of, but this had was much more than unexpected, it was unbelievable. He hoped that his plans would stand up to the assault.

"I still have one advantage they are not expecting, I think" he commented mildly to his companion.

She was not handling things with anywhere near as much equanimity as he was, he could tell. The whites of her wide eyes were clearly visible even in the soft lighting of the room he had made his personal quarters.

"You're out of your damned mind!" she snapped back. "You can't be thinking of ..." He raised a hand to her lips and she quietened instantly.

"I can, and indeed I am, and in fact, I shall. I would be out of my mind _not_ to use all the resources I have available, do you not agree, Miss McCullough?" She looked at him mutely, an anger building up inside her to offset her terror.

"Did it ever occur to you what will happen if it beats them? It'll come looking for us too." He simply smiled at her, standing and motioning her to join him. Sullenly she complied, and the two of them walked through the sole door to the room and into a short corridor. He led her towards a heavy metal door, which opened before he reached it, and they stepped into the darkness of the room beyond.

Blue light reflected a glow on the faces of the people inside, the TV monitors lining the walls flickering between unviewable static and images of scenes that perhaps would have been left unviewed. Ito led her to one side where a solitary monitor had been set up and gestured to the image. Despite herself her eyes were drawn to the picture of a black insectoid creature, curled up in one corner of the room, a man's body close by. She had seen these things once before, she didn't think Ito was taking them as seriously as he should.

"I think it will be busy with our visitors for a while, and in the process will be hurt sufficiently for us to deal with it afterwards. Even if it loses, it should reduce the numbers of your friends that we will face. Either way, we will win, Miss McCullough." She shook her head in angry denial, but before she could say anything the bald headed man came up beside Ito and cleared his throat.

"Yes?" Ito demanded, turning towards his man.

"I believe we have found the one you were asking about, sir" he replied impassively. Ito's face brightened, and he gestured for the man to show him.

On the monitor they were taken to they could see clearly that the figure, although clad in similar gray armor to the others attacking them, was human and female. Ito turned at Kylie's shocked gasp.

"I take it that is indeed your 'bitch in black', Miss McCullough?" She could only stare as the monitor showed them the woman crouched down on a stairwell, manipulating something mounted on her thigh. The angle was too acute for them to get a better image of what she was doing, and as she stood and moved back down the stairs they lost sight of her.

"Yeah, I guess that's her. How many other bitches do you think they have running with them?" she replied acidly. He chuckled.

"That would depend, I would imagine, on how well endowed they are, perhaps?" Kylie gagged at the idea, even if the suggestion sent an odd tingle through her. Ito turned to the bald man and gestured to the monitor displaying the captive alien.

"It's time to release our friend. Make sure it only has one path it can take." The bald man nodded, then left, taking one of the others in the control room with him. Ito turned back to the bank of monitors on the wall, and they settled to watch as the aliens made their way through the defenders. After a few minutes of observing the carnage on the levels below, she turned to him.

"You know, it looks a lot like none of the people getting massacred down there are yours." He smiled tightly.

"All of my people are on the top two levels, Miss McCullough. There is really no need for them to be down there, it would be such a waste when they will be needed later." She looked at him curiously.

"Needed later?" He nodded, and the cold way he replied raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

"Of course. Someone will need to fill the vacancies."

-

He had chosen the level his Penetrator capsule would reach, his privilege as Elder to claim a level as his own. He would allow the others to hunt the higher levels, the _pyode amedha_ huntress to search for those she had indicated to them as they prepared for the drop, but the ground level was all his. He looked on the opportunity to hunt the humans chosen to defend the building itself as the best challenge available, assuming the humans would have selected their best for such important responsibilities.

It had also meant his ride into the building was the most jarring, the retarding vanes having been jettisoned just after his Penetrator capsule pierced the roof of the building, allowing it to fall freely and unrestrained until it came to a bone crunching halt. They had planned the insertion point to coincide with what the ship's scans had shown to be the most heavily reinforced portions of the building, relying on the additional resistance the structure would provide to slow the Penetrator to a halt at the correct spot.

He clicked a laugh to himself as the outside of his capsule blew away from its surrounding hull, flying across the room to impact the wall opposite with a spray of red mist from the hapless human unlucky to be in its path, crushed against the wall into a pulp. He hadn't even left the capsule, and he already had a kill. He stepped out of the capsule, not bothering to cloak as he scanned the room using the multiple vision modes his mask provided him. Quickly he spotted two other humans, rapidly recovering from the shock of his arrival and bringing their weapons to bear on him.

As they triggered long bursts from their projectile weapons, the hot metal bullets visible to his heat-sensitive vision mode as bars of glowing orange curving in wide arcs towards him, he sprinted towards them, unclipping the spear from its mounting on the backpiece of his armor and bringing it around in front of him. The arc of bullets from one of the humans tracked around fast enough to bring their path intersecting with his own, and he felt the burning stinging pain as several bullets hit him in the side, but as he closed fast on the two _pyode amedha_ the majority of their bullets began to spang harmlessly from the gray metal protecting his chest and shoulders.

The weapons the humans held clicked empty just as he came up on them and he gripped the spear to extend it to its full deadly length before he thrust it towards one of the men, impaling him through the stomach. At the same time, he raised his other arm and swung a hammer blow punch towards the other human, but growled in annoyance as the human barely managed to avoid the blow, stumbling backwards and trying to reload his primitive weapon. The Elder switched his attention to this human, the other slumping to the ground groaning in pain from the length of Yautja spear running through his guts.

He stalked slowly towards the human, watching as he fumbled the metallic container holding more ammunition for his weapon. As the container dropped to the floor, the human straightened and in desperation swung the weapon itself towards him like a club. He raised his left arm, blocking the impact with the vambrace shielding his computer, and as the vibration shock from the impact traveled back to the man's hands, numbing them, he dropped the weapon.

The Elder growled in appreciation as the human tried instead to kick him.

"You do not run, but stand and fight. Your skull will be a fine trophy" he commented, but the human only heard the growls and clicks of the Yautja language. It was unlikely he'd have appreciated the compliment he'd been paid even if he'd understood the words, though. The Elder became even more excited when the human spun around in a move that reminded him of the huntress' style and drove a short knife blade deep into the Elder's side, just below the armor. He roared from the pain, bringing his arm around and slamming his clawed fist into the human's chest, sending him backwards several feet to land in a heap amongst the rubble strewn around the room from the capsule's entry.

He reached down and withdrew the knife, looking at it briefly then tossing it back towards the groaning human, neon green alien blood coating the blade leaving a bright smear on the ground as the knife skidded to a halt close by the man. The Elder lowered into a crouch and held his arms out wide before roaring a challenge to the human.

"Try again."

-

She looked cautiously through the grille-work in the bottom of the duct space and saw a man pacing back and forwards, surrounded by heavy plastic bags stacked on top of each other containing powders and pills. As far as she could tell, the only way in was a heavily reinforced door at one end, she assumed this was some kind of secure storage for drugs. An evil thought came to her, and thinking quickly she crouched, her feet either side of the grille, and lifted it gently on one edge until there was a slight gap between it and the floor of the duct space.. She pressed against the side of her armor until a short length of the thin black alien cord had run out, then stopped it without using the cutter, before fashioning a loop with a simple slip knot.

Her original intention to make her way to the upper floors of the building had been thwarted before she got very far up the stairwell, it had been blocked off by thick layers of concrete and steel. She had kicked herself for not realizing they might close off all but a limited set of ways to reach the upper levels, where she assumed the mob leaders would make their final redoubt. She had spent several minutes examining the schematics, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong and how to get around the blockage, hopefully able to bypass whatever defenses the prey had erected around the ways to reach them.

It hadn't taken her long to realize that there was a maze of smaller accessways – crawl spaces, venting ducts, false floors and ceilings, throughout the entire building. She didn't know the building's original purpose, but when it had been designed for use as a data center, such things were considered essential in the planning to allow for good ventilation and access to electrics, electronics, and the huge amount of power cabling the building would have needed. She didn't care, either – All she knew was someone had given her the perfect tools to reach her objective, and it had been child's play for her to make her way into the vents that ran beside the false ceilings throughout the fortress.

She had been heading towards a shaft that seemed to run vertically through the building, she'd make her way up that way, then surprise her _prey_, when she'd come across the opening she was crouched beside, and couldn't pass up the opportunity.

She timed the man's pacing, and as he went beneath the grille she started deploying more of the cord, dropping her makeshift noose through the gap between the grille and duct floor quickly. Her timing was exquisite - the cord was nearly invisible in the light of the storeroom and dropped over the guard's head just as he walked underneath her. She pressed hard against her armor on the other side of the port in her armor the cord was extruded from, and one of her new toys came into play – the power pack that normally energized the plasma weapon on her shoulder instead directed its energies to a small winch attached to the cord spool inside her backpiece.

The loop tightened around the guard's neck before he even realized it had dropped over his head, and as she braced her feet against the ducting floor as the weight came onto her armor - he was lifted rapidly into the air, his legs flailing as he dropped his weapon and tried to reach under the cord digging into his skin. Asphyxiation was the least of his worries though, for as he was drawn to the vent, his head hit the grill pushing it upwards and clear of its mounting, and as his face cleared the edge far enough that he could see into the shaft, all he had time to see was a flash of silver.

As the weight suddenly left the cord, she reflexively jerked upwards, and almost banging her own head against the ceiling of the duct space, but she was ready for the sudden departure of most of the dead weight and caught herself in time. She looked down through the hole in the ducting and gave herself a mental pat on the back, before replacing the grille over the gap, covering her tracks. She allowed the cutter in her armor to detach the end of the cord, and placed her new trophy in the net bag slung over her back. The memory of taking this one made it worth keeping.

She tried to straighten up a little. Although the crawl space was reasonably spacious, she was still reduced to stooping as she traveled through it, trying to avoid knocking into the metal sides with her armor and making noise, and it was taking a toll on her back and thighs. If she remembered correctly, she was getting closer to one of the main vertical shafts, close by the elevators, and she hoped she could stretch when she reached it. With a last look at the headless body lying in the room below in large puddle of dark blood, she moved off again.

She could feel the cooler air blowing on the exposed portions of her skin, before the mesh undergarment that provided the environmental control for her armor adjusted, and as she came up on the shaft she peered down into the darkness below, so far down that she had to switch her vision mode just to see the bottom. She craned her neck around to look upwards, and decided the shaft was too wide for her to climb it the way she'd originally planned – pressing her feet against one side and her back against the other.

That would mean climbing using the serrated backs of her wristblades, something she hadn't enjoyed the few times she'd done it during her training. She was grateful that considering its size and bulk, her Yautja armor was light, it would make it less of a strain on her arms. She clenched her fists and turned them, the twinned death on each forearm extending then rotating and bringing the backwards-slanted teeth on the reverse side into place to be jammed into the metal vent sides, piercing then holding. She reached up and was about to start when she felt something cold and sticky on the vent wall with her fingertips.

She brought her hand back in and looked at her hand, switching vision modes to get a better look at whatever it was she had touched. When she finally saw it, her heart leaped in her chest.

"How the ..." She tried to remember the lessons Blade had taught her about determining how long ago this might have been left here, and didn't like the answer, it was way too recent. She withdrew back into the shaft a little way, straining with all her senses to make sure there was nothing nearby. Other than the faint screams of humans, and the challenge and victory roars of the Yautja that carried through the ventwork, there was nothing. No hissing. No scrabbling. No indication at all.

That scared her the most. There was _kainde amedha_ in the building – and they had no way of knowing where.


	24. Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant

**Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant  
**

Going through the vent shafts was too dangerous. A Yautja might have stood a chance against a _kainde amedha_ in such a confined space, but her strongest defense against hard meat was her speed and agility, neither of which could she employ in the metal-walled shafts. That would mean having to run the gauntlet of the only route the mobsters had left open to reach the upper levels, which would most assuredly be swarming with heavily armed _pyode amedha_. She thought about the situation quickly, then made her decision.

"_If nothing else, it will be one hell of a challenge"_ she thought wryly. The idea of warning the others about her discovery only briefly crossed her mind before she dismissed it. They were too spread out around the building for her to reach, and they were all blooded hunters, all but one highly experienced, all hunting. They would be alert for any threat, _pyode-_ or _kainde amedha_, and could handle things on their own without her warning.

If they couldn't, then that was just the way of the hunt.

She backed through the shaft until she found a vent grille in the floor, and after checking to make sure the coast was clear removed the cover and dropped silently into the corridor below. She crouched and oriented herself with the holographic schematics of the building inside her computer, then engaged her cloak before moving purposefully towards one end of the corridor. She glanced in either direction as she reached the T junction at the end, and once she was sure there was no-one nearby, she unclipped a disc-shaped weapon from the arsenal at her waist.

She took two steps back, her fingers comfortably within the holes spaced through the center of the disc for just that purpose, then swung it at the wall in front of her. A high pitched whine came to her ears as the electronics inside the disc activated, causing the already wafer-sharp edge to vibrate just before it made contact with the concrete, and a stream of gray dust blew outwards as the disk started to cut its way through the surface, powdering along the line she drew.

Once she had completed a semi circle from floor to floor, she stepped back further, replacing the disc at her waist and bringing the plasma weapon on her shoulder online. The ominous muzzle raised until she could feel it drop into the ready position, as she adjusted the power level she needed and waited for the red triangle of a lock to appear in front of her eyes, three pencil thin beams of red laser light projecting from one side of her helmet against the center of the area she had scored in the wall. Holding her breath, she let loose with a ball of red plasma, the heat vaporising the wall into minute particles that had once been concrete and reinforcing steel bars.

"Dammit!" she cursed out loud, her mask's vision piercing the cloud the blast had raised to reveal she'd miscalculated, there was still some wall left intact. She adjusted the levels again before releasing another bolt, to be rewarded this time with the sight of the stairwell on the other side of the barrier. She was about to step through the gap she had made when a clattering announced the arrival of one, two men, on the other side. Seeing the hole in the wall, they started firing blindly, and she sidestepped to clear the stream of bullets.

She shook her head in disgust at the panicked and totally pointless actions of the two men, and during a lull in the firing as they both had to reload brought her arm around to rest against the door frame, triggering the weapon slung underneath it as she did so. A choking scream came from one of the _prey_ on the other side, then a clatter as a gun fell to the cement steps. The firing tailed off from the other side, and after a pause there was a strangled cry in a different voice.

She looked around the door to see one of the _prey_ pressed up against the wall, two of the pitons designed to anchor the net had penetrated into his body, the other four into the wall beside him, and as the strands were automatically retracting into the spikes, the effect was somewhat similar to a cheese grater. His companion hadn't fared much better, standing holding his hands up, staring in stunned shock at the blood pumping from the stumps on both where his fingers had been only moments ago. She could see them, pale sausages of flesh and bone, scattered around the _prey_ impaled to the wall by the net where they had fallen – the _prey_ had obviously tried to grab the net and pull on it as it slowly cut through his accomplice, the razor strands amputating the fingers off at the knuckles.

Feeling a brief flash of pity she uncloaked, but the fingerless _prey_ was oblivious to her presence, sinking instead to his knees and looking wildly around the floor for his fingers. His move threw her aim off as she brought her wristblades up to finish him, and what would have been a clean strike into the man's side ended with the jagged blades crunching through the man's skull to emerge on the other side. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, his eyes bulging as he still, inexplicably, tried to look for his fingers, and as she tried to withdraw the blades to strike once more, she cursed – the back-canted teeth lining the back of her blades had lodged in the bone of the man's head.

Grimly, she pulled, soft moans coming from the man as her tugging jerked his head sideways, before she raised one booted foot up, placing it against the side of the man's head next to the blades and pulling them free with a crack, blood bone and brains coming away to drop from the silvered metal in globs. The man's body twitched then was still, and she turned her attention to the prey against the wall, his eyes wide in terror as she stepped closer.

She watched without emotion as the strands finally cut through a major blood vessel in the pinned _prey_'s torso, and he slumped as most of his remaining blood volume dumped onto the ground before running down the stairs in a series of crimson waterfalls. She pressed a control on her thigh-mounted computer and the pitons released from the wall, the body sagging to the ground. She replaced the net back in its mounting under her forearm before moving on, following the stairs upwards.

-

"Would someone like to explain what's going on?" Ito asked, his mild voice sending chills through his people gathered around the monitors in the surveillance room. When Ito became quiet and reasonable, people became dead very quickly, usually at the hands of the bald wiry man who was constantly at Ito's side, as he was now.

"I guess you might be needing all those goons up here after all, huh? Wonder how many will be left for you to use as 'replacements'", Kylie asked acidly, uncaring of the dead-eyes glance the bald enforcer gave her. She had been borderline insane when she had encountered Cally by chance at the mall, but the cold reality of the situation she was in right now was forcing her to return to sanity with a vengeance. She had watched the monitors as the aliens had systematically engaged in a bloodbath the extent of which she had never envisioned, and she knew that she had picked the wrong side.

"It's obvious what's going on, Ito. You bet humans against aliens, and the aliens are winning." Ito glared at her before turning to the bald man.

"Get your people together, see if you can't find Miss McCullough's friend in black and invite her here. Perhaps she can be persuaded to make her friends see sense and stop their attack", Ito instructed, but as the bald enforcer nodded and left the surveillance room, Kylie laughed and shook her head.

"You just sent him and his 'people' to their deaths, Ito. You can't 'persuade' her to do squat, except maybe to kill you quick." Her voice tailed off as Ito looked at her once more, a smile on his lips as he placed one finger against them, quietening her. He gestured towards her still bandaged hand, and she shrank in on herself, holding her other hand over the bandage protectively.

"I don't see why not, Miss McCullough. After all, we persuaded you."

-

She flinched as a line of red hot pain shot through her arm, a bullet from above had hit one of the shoulder pauldrons of her armor then creased the exposed skin just above her elbow. She dodged backwards, looking up and allowing her mask to backtrack the bullet's trajectory to where it had come from. As the red bars moved across her vision, she powered up the plasma weapon on her shoulder, feeling the whining vibration as it moved up and into position then tracked along the same path her visor was describing to her.

As the red bar slowed then was joined in the solid triangle of a target lock by the other two, she magnified her view bringing into sharp relief the barrel of what looked like a hunting rifle protruding over the stairs two floors up. The sandy hair of the shooter appeared briefly as he raised his head to try and sight the rifle on her again, and with calculated precision she released the hellish energies of the weapon on her shoulder.

The bolt of star-hot plasma gave the stairwell an eerie red glow as it shot upwards before connecting with the stairs just underneath the shooter, and in the strobe flash of impact, her mask's vision mode dampening to prevent her being blinded, she watched the concrete steps being pummeled into powder and the flash-fried remains of the shooter, still gripping the melted and bent remains of the rifle, falling to land one stairway below with a thud.

She checked her arm quickly, but it wasn't that bad, not enough to require she attend to it there and then, although it hurt like a bitch. Of more concern to her was how the shooter had even managed to know she was there, her cloak was active! She crouched to check the diagnostics with her thigh-mounted computer, but then slapped the forehead of her mask for her stupidity as she glanced down and saw the reason for her compromise – she had walked through the blood puddle of her previous kill, and her feet were leaving bloody footprints on the stairs. The shooter must have been looking down the stairwell through the scope of the rifle and seen the tracks, firing blind and getting in a lucky hit, explaining the glancing blow.

She cursed herself, she had become complacent, reliant on the abilities of her armor and its cloak as the Second had feared all those long days ago. She wiped the blood from her feet and shook herself, reminding herself of the warning she had given Asshole – _Overconfidence is dangerous_. Suitably self-chastised, she continued her climb of the stairs, quickly reaching the level the shooter had been and having to jump over the hole her bolt had made in the stairs, the edges still glowing hotly from the energy.

One more flight and she was at the doorway to the floor she wanted, but her mask amplified the sounds of many people on the other side of the door, talking in nervous voices. A corner of her mind noted that the voices were still maintaining a level of calmness, their owners must either be very professional, or be totally clueless to the situation. She smiled to herself as she unhooked two of the throwing stars from her armor, holding one in each hand as her thumbs pressed down on the middle of the devices, causing the thin _kainde amedha_-talon tipped spikes to extend outwards.

She paused, though, as a voice called out loud enough to be heard through the doorway.

"Hello? We know you're out there. Our employer would like to talk with you, to try and resolve the problem." She waited, trying to decide what game was being played, and the voice continued, calmly.

"We know you can probably reach your objective, but that would involve risk to you. There are too many of us here for you to take out easily, and this is the most defended part of the whole building. We will allow you to keep your weapons, you will not be attacked or harmed. He just wants to talk to you, we give you our word."

_Yeah, like your word means squat even when you're not facing being wiped out, jerk_, she thought. The silence went on for a few minutes as she tried to decide what to do. Most of the mobsters she would be fighting weren't the _prey_ she wanted, their skulls would be unlikely to adorn her trophy wall. She really only wanted the three crime bosses, not the underlings. If she could trust the offer, which she doubted, it would make it easier for her to reach the real _prey_ of her hunt. Once she had taken those three down, she could then come back through the building, fighting if she needed to, but she questioned how willing the criminals would be to fight her knowing their bosses were dead.

She came to a decision.

"Tell your people to disarm themselves, and I'll consider it." She could hear a laugh from the other side.

"And what guarantees do we have that you won't turn around and use the weaponry you have against us while we're defenseless?" She growled inside her mask, how dare he insult her with such a suggestion! She fumed before an idea came to her.

"Have all your people throw their guns out here. If I see a gun, I'll just blow the building, and solve everyone's problems that way. One gun, you're all dead."

The sensors in her mask could detect the sound of quiet conversation on the other side of the door, but she couldn't make out the words. Eventually, after some obvious argument, the stranger's voice could be heard again.

"We have a deal."

-

She entered the softly lit room Ito had selected for his own, flanked by the black-garbed killers, the bald headed one leading the way. She noted that the soft carpeting covering the floor deadened the sound of footfalls, while she adjusted her mask's vision mode back to the visible light spectrum to better see those waiting for her.

She wasn't really that surprised that one of the two people there was the reporter. She had figured the woman had gotten herself in too deep before realizing who she was playing with, but she was gratified to see that the reporters eyes, unlike their previous encounter, showed fear. The other waiting for her, however, showed no sign of emotion, standing instead impassively beside Kylie, his immaculate suit and tie an oddly incongruous vision compared to the bloodbath being created on the floors below. It was a testament to the soundproofing of the room that, once the doors were closed by one of the men in black, the sounds of the fighting were muted even from the sensors in her mask.

As she came up to in front of the pair, the mobsters that had escorted her there spreading out to form a loose semi-circle, the man bowed, his eyes never leaving her eye shields. "It's a pleasure to meet you finally, Miss ..." She let the unspoken question hang there, and turned her head towards Kylie instead. The reporter took half a step back nervously, but held her ground otherwise, her eyes tracking up and down Cally's armor as she tried to catalog all the things she had only seen once before through a camera monitor.

"I had hoped that you would have more sense after our last encounter" she said, the mask amplifying and distorting her words. Kylie shook her head in mute denial, then glared at Ito.

"I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. This has all gotten out of hand, I didn't want any part of any of it, or letting that other alien loose, but it's not like anyone ..." Cally interrupted her, the steel in her voice obvious.

"What other alien? You mean the _kainde amedha_?".

"Is that what they're called? How curious. We must be sure to talk more about these '_kainde amedha_' later. But we have more pressing issues to discuss at the moment." Ito motioned her towards the table to one side, a handful of chairs surrounding it, but she remained where she was. He shrugged, and moved towards the table without her, making her pivot in place to keep her eyes on him.

"What makes you think we have anything to discuss, Mister Ito?" _Two can play at the surprise game, kiddo_, she thought to herself, but he gave no visible reaction to her revealing she knew his name.

"Why, how to put an end to this senseless killing that you and your friends have brought on myself and my colleagues, of course." he poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the tabletop and turned to face her, leaning against one of the chairs. "We are, after all, sensible rational human beings here, I'm sure we can come to some arrangement, although", he took a sip before continuing, "I am curious as to why you have embarked on such a ... widespread disruption of our business dealings."

"There is no need to discuss how to end the hunt, Mister Ito, it will end when all of your people are dead. Including", she added, "Mister Wen, Mister Issoti, and yourself, of course." The figures around them in black shifted hearing her words, and she could sense weapons being loosened in their sheaths, but she gave no outward sign she had detected their preparations. Ito looked at her for a moment, cold eyes trying to penetrate the opaque darkness of her eyeshields without success. He looked down at the tumbler of water in his hands, swirling the contents around thoughtfully.

"I really do wish you would reconsider your position. I know that money is not your goal, you have not taken any from the places you've hit before, likewise with drugs. I can only assume therefore that this is personal on your part somehow?" Her lack of response seemed to fluster him for the first time. "What is it that you want?"

She laughed, then, sounding hollow and eerie projected by her mask.

"Why it is quite simple Mister Ito. I want your head, and those of your 'colleagues'." Ito blinked, trying to understand. He placed the tumbler back on the tabletop, a slight tremor sending a shiver across the surface of the water remaining betraying his unease.

"Might I ask what we have done to warrant such a desire?" She could feel those around her tensing, obviously reacting to some unseen signal from their boss. She grinned behind her mask and flexed her fingers imperceptibly then relaxed her arms, bringing her fingertips close to the disks mounted on her thighs. In response to some unknown warning, she sidestepped and pivoted on one foot, a knife thrown from behind her narrowly missing embedding itself in the small of her back, and she brought her arms up and out, catching the finger holes of the disks on the way up before she pushed them out and away to begin their deadly circuit of the room, arcing around either side and cutting through the black cloth, body armor, and flesh of the guards.

She pushed to one side, as the silvery flash of a sword blade came daggering down where she had been standing, and closed her fists extending her wrist blades before sweeping one arm around to deflect the return swing of the sword. The bald man wielding it, in response to his own reflexes, twisted out of the way as one of the returning disks cut through the air beside him, and as she caught both of the disks the two stepped backwards, widening the gap between them.

She gaged the man's stance, his confidence, and smiles inwardly, bending into a crouch slowly before rising once more with two long blades, drawn from her calf armor. She relaxed her fists, allowing the wristblades to retract into their housings once more, then reversed the blades in her hands until they rested against her forearms. Crossing her arms over her chest, she inclined her head imperceptibly to her opponent, who nodded in return once, his stance relaxed and informal.

For long moments they stood there, watching each other, until almost simultaneously moving into the attack, Ito and the reporter unable to do anything but watch in amazement as silver shimmered through the air, the clang of alien metal against human steel ringing in their ears as _pyode amedha_ forged blade struck Yautja-crafted blade and back. She wasn't thinking, simply reacting, allowing decades of training at the hands of a Yautja Elder to control her body, her reflexes. She couldn't feel the weight of her armor, didn't see the electronic display in front of her eyes, she simply allowed her nature to take over, allowing the hunter within her, that she had become, to finally be unleashed against a human – a _pyode amedha_, with all the brutal yet beautiful savagery and skill she gave it.

She parried every thrust of her opponent's blade, waiting for the moment to strike. When he tried to bind with her blades, she gave him a practical reminder that they were not her only weapons, bringing one knee up and catching him on the thigh, the impact jarring through his bone. He disengaged and she allowed him to, watching him limp slightly favoring the leg.

After a moment for them to catch their breath, they engaged once more, a blur of limbs and weapons. She had no doubts about the outcome, she had fought _kainde amedha_ and survived, faced a _kainde amedha_ queen, taken her revenge on a Yautja bad blood in single combat, been blooded by a Yautja Elder. No matter how good this human, he was still simply a human, but in the corner of her mind her own warning kept her on her guard – _Overconfidence is dangerous_.

She was grateful for the warning when out of the corner of her eye she noticed a movement, and without looking threw one of the blades in her hands towards the source, to be rewarded with a choked off gurgle and a clatter as one of the dark clothed guards, only wounded by the disks she had sent in their deadly parade around the room at the start of the fight, slumped to the ground, the blade embedded through his throat, the silver of the gun he had been drawing on the floor.

Her opponent took advantage of her momentary distraction and pressed forwards, the tip of his sword blade stabbing into her to one side above her hip, and she let out a scream of pain and anger, pulling back before the sword could penetrate too deeply while bringing her remaining blade around so quickly the bald man had to let go and draw his hand away or loose it. The sword fell to the ground, not having entered her flesh deep enough to stay there, and she pressed her hand against her side, wincing as she did so. Ito cleared his throat as the two combatants watched each other warily, the bald man holding his empty hands by his sides.

"You are very talented. But as I am sure you are aware, your chances of winning against my colleague here are nonexistent." Ito stepped towards her, his hands outstretched in a gesture of placation, slightly blocking her line of sight to her opponent. Without thinking, she triggered a burst of plasma, vaporizing one of Ito's arms and punching a hole through the torso of the man beyond, who crumpled to the floor without realizing how he had died, the thin bladed throwing knife hidden in his hand that Ito's movement had concealed dropping from fingers no longer having a spine to receive signals from. Ito fell to his knees, looking at the ruined cauterized stump where his arm had once been, as Kylie let out a muted whimper.

She stepped towards Ito, one hand pressed against the wound in her side, and looked down on him without emotion.

"You didn't even know what the game was to be betting on who would be the winner, Mister Ito." he looked up at her with pain and hatred in his eyes, his impassive mask now gone with the cloud of blood and flesh that had once been his arm.

"Why did you do this? What did we do to you? I've got to know." For a brief moment, she considered telling him to get used to disappointment, but with sudden clarity realized that the truth would destroy him even more completely. She moved her free arm out to one side, reversing the blade in her hand to point forwards as she did so.

"You want to know why I attacked you? Why I hunted down your kind in the city? Why I want your heads?" Ito nodded, mutely.

She paused.

"You made adequate _prey_."


	25. Non sum qualis eram

**Non sum qualis eram**

"Adequate _prey_?" Her voice rose to a near-shriek. "That was a human being!"

"_Pyode amedha_", she corrected almost absently as she finished hooking the grisly trophy to her waist. "And," she continued, "barely adequate at that. For all his power, he was too much a coward to face his own prey directly." Satisfied that the head was secure, she stood, brushing the blood from her armor as she did so to send it spattering through the widening dark red puddle ruining the carpet.

Looking around, she debated if any of the other prey had been worthy of taking their heads, but decided against it. The only one that had come close to being a challenge was the last, the bald man who had managed to cut her. She felt the wound in her side, the dull heat from the blue paste encrusted over the cut he had given her numbing the pain to a half-felt residual.

She pointed towards his body, the reporter's gaze drawn reluctantly to the gaping hole where the man's chest and abdomen had been, now a caved-in ruin attaching legs to arms to head.

"That one was more worthy _prey_, but even so he acted without honor, hunting the weak. Ito's skull will adorn my vault, as will those of Wen and Issotti , not because they were challenges themselves, but because what they stood for was the challenge." She looked the reporter squarely in the eye.

"The question is, what of you? I warned you to pray I didn't notice you, yet here you are, hand in hand with these _pyode amedha_." Kylie snorted, tossing her head back and straightening up.

"You should kill me, bitch. Because if you don't, I'm going to plaster your face all over the news, I'll expose you for what you are – a psychopathic murderer!" She chuckled behind her mask.

"And who will believe you, when they know that you have been running with criminals? It would be hard to hide your lack of a finger." She shook her head. "No, you are no threat to us. The only reason you might have been worth hunting is because you ignored my warning, but you are truly not worth the effort." She made towards the doors to leave, but was surprised when the reporter reached a hand out, grabbing her by the arm as she went past. She looked down at the reporter's hand, then into her face, and the woman trembled before letting go as if scalded.

"I'm going to find you. I'll get you, one way or another, bitch" she mumbled. Cally laughed behind her mask.

"Not yet, girl. _Not yet_."

-

The Healer wasn't happy. His hunt had gotten off to a bad start, his Penetrator capsule hitting a particularly stubborn section of reinforced construction that had tilted it off course, causing it to topple and skid along the floor a few levels above ground, plowing through thinner interior walls and quite a few hapless _pyode amedha_ unable to get out of the way in time, before coming to rest in a cloud of dust and debris. To add insult to this, it had come to a halt with the hatch partially underneath – he had tried to release the hatch but only the top had come free, forcing him to clamber out of the alien cocoon.

To make it all worse, along with his mood, the Penetrator's wild ride along the floor had emptied his arrival point of most all the _pyode amedha_ there were for him to vent his frustrations on, leaving him with little alternative but to punch holes in inoffensive walls. Those few hapless humans unlucky enough to have survived the arrival of the capsule that hadn't already run for the stairwells were treated similarly, pummeled into bloody piles of torn flesh more than hunted.

He had found more luck a few levels up, running across a group of _pyode amedha_ who had thought their barricaded area impregnable. With gleeful abandon only a Yautja could display, he had cut through the dozen or so humans behind it, before teasing the handful he left alive during his initial deadly assault by cloaking and uncloaking in different places, trying to find one that would challenge him the most.

He was so absorbed with toying with his _prey_ that he didn't notice the shadow-within-the-shadows that watched him closely. The flash of weapons fire reflected dully from its shiny black skin and carapace, unseen to the combatants, as it observed and waited for its moment.

At the moment of its unholy birth, crashing through the chest of its unwilling host, it had cast its mind out, searching for its hive, its queen, but had heard nothing. The silence in its mind had tinged its birth cry of defiance with an indescribable loneliness. Its instincts drove it, now. It was alone, there was no hive. It needed to restrain its natural desire to hunt, instead waiting and biding its time for the change to come. It must survive to grow, metamorphose, and create a hive, as its queen. Then it would no longer be alone.

The creatures holding it captive had set it free to roam their nest, but it could sense clearly the chaos it had been released into the midst of. It could feel the death spasms of countless potential hosts, and realized that it was in terrible danger. It needed to leave here, find safety. It was the only one of its kind, it _must_ survive, to create the hive.

It had paused however when it came across the creature it observed so carefully now. Deep within it, it could feel the stirrings of fear and hatred for this pale thing, although it did not know why. It instinctively knew however that the host creatures might pose no threat, but this one posed a very real threat. The feelings of hatred grew as it came to the conclusion that this thing before it must be the reason why it could not feel any of its brethren, the reason why it was alone.

The hatred warred within it with the need to run, hide, to create the hive. In the end, the instinct for the preservation of its species won out, but it marked well the appearance of this dangerous creature. It would remember.

Without disturbing the combatants, it made its way deeper into the building, its instincts and senses guiding it to the lower levels, more shadows and darkness, a place to hide, to escape through. As the Healer finished off the last of the pyode amedha defenders by the barricade, he had no idea how close he had been to facing a _kainde amedha_, or the consequences his preoccupation with his _prey_ would have.

-

She could tell the grin on her opponent's face was forced now. Confidence had begun to be replaced with desperation as he realized that he was losing, against an opponent he couldn't even see yet. She laughed, allowing her mask to amplify the sound and he spun towards her, a stream of bullets tumbling from the barrel of the weapon he held, but she ducked down and they passed harmlessly by once more, following the hundreds that had come before.

She hadn't been planning on playing with her _prey_, but when she'd made her way towards his chambers she'd walking in on a scene that made her blood boil. Wen had obviously either received bad news, or hadn't heard what he'd wanted to, and was busy pummeling a hapless mobster into a bloody mess, the goon unable to defend himself because his arms were pinned by his sides by two others.

She sprang forwards, extending the wristblades from both her forearms and impaling the captors at the same time, then had withdrawn, wrenching the jagged alien metal from the bodies as they had fallen to the ground. Faster than she had expected, Wen had reached behind him to produce a short barreled machine pistol and started spraying the room, narrowly missing her as he fired blindly, the bullets instead tearing through the hapless mobster's skull in a spray of blood and gray matter. Remembering her mistake from earlier that had revealed her even cloaked, she had made her way around the room, trying to avoid the blood, but somehow Wen had been able to nearly track her, coming close several times as he continued to fire, reloading now and again.

She watched as he made to reload again, and made her decision quickly. Pressing against the discolored panel in her armor, she allowed more of the fine cord to extrude out as she reached into a pouch at her waist. She tied the small metallic dart to the loose end just as Wen finished reloading, and as he brought the gun to bear once more she turned her cloak off.

The smile that began to spread across his face died as she straightened up and he saw the head mounted to her belt. His mouth opened and closed several times before his features hardened, but as he began to lift the weapon up to point at her she threw the dart with unerring accuracy towards him. He let out a shriek as the dart punched into his chest, rising in volume as she tugged on the cord pulling the dart back towards her, the barbs inside it springing out and catching in the bone of his sternum and pulling him off balance.

Each time he tried to regain his footing and bring the gun back up, she tugged on the cord, eliciting a cry of pain from the panicking mob boss as he was drawn inexorably closer to her. Each time he tried to reach for the barbed dart in his chest or the cord, she would give a stronger yank on the cord, bringing him to the ground.

Eventually he was directly in front of her, and as she reached across and took the now-forgotten gun from his hands he looked up at her, his face a mixture of fear, resignation, and anger. He spat up at her, blood and spittle mixing to spot the markings that covered one side of her mask but doing little to interfere with her vision. She shook her head slowly, amused at this final gesture of defiance, and pressed down on his shoulders until he was kneeling, before moving around behind him and crouching down.

She placed one hand around and under his chin, clenching the other into a fist, and as her blades extended she flexed her wrist so that they rotated to face upwards. With a grunt, she punched the blades into his back, either side of his spine, and as his body arched, she began to draw her arm upwards, the twinned razor-sharp serrated edges cutting through flesh and muscle either side of his spinal column. After a few inches she paused, reaching her hand into the bloody gashes that she had caused so far and wrapping it around the vertebrae at the small of his back, before continuing her devastating butchery of her prey, oblivious to the screams that were now coming out of his throat.

As the blades reached the ribs, she gave a jerk upwards, the keen metal parting through the bone without much effort, and the spine finally came away from his pelvis, his legs going limp as they were disconnected from his brain. She continued, the man's torso quivering as his cries quietened down into a breathy mewling, jerking her arm as the blades encountered each pair of ribs, slowly pulling his spine away from his back and leaving a bloody trench of flesh behind. In moments, she reached his shoulder blades, and she stopped then, pressing his torso forwards and releasing the cartilage-and-tissue coated spine.

She stood and took hold once more, bending slightly to get a good purchase, before lifting her arm at the same time as she gave an explosive heave upwards, straightening her legs and throwing her body weight backwards. The man's spine and head came free in a fountain of blood, and she stood there for a moment, her arm raised holding aloft the gore-dripping trophy before screaming her victory out loud.

After she recovered from the release of her emotions, she looked at the remains in her hand with that same curious detachment she had fought for so long to deny. She had retrieved a trophy even Yautja would be impressed with, the complete skull and spine of her _prey_. She grinned mirthlessly to herself behind her mask as she quickly cut through the cord attached to the dart in his sternum, and fashioned a loop around the base of the neck, and slung the whole assemblage over one shoulder to hang down and rest against her back, the head peeking out over her shoulder opposite her plasma cannon.

"Two down, one to go. Here, kitty kitty kitty."

-

Issotti wasn't feeling like a cat right then – quite the opposite. In his terror and panic he had run, but every turn he had taken had taken him to a place where a Yautja could be found, cheerfully indulging themselves in their hunting of this _prey_-rich game preserve the crime lords had set up for them. Each time they had spotted him they had made as if to kill him, but once up close, they had looked at his face and skull and realized that this was one of the three _pyode amedha_ the human huntress had laid prior claim on, and let him go.

Losing himself deeper in the building, and gradually deeper into madness, Issotti ran onwards, not understanding why he was being spared, not caring where he was running to. Isolated pockets of the men each of the three crime bosses had brought with them all rejected his pleas for help, his begging to be allowed entry to their barricaded false sanctuaries having no effect. Any shred of loyalty they might have once had were gone, it was every man for himself now.

The frequent piles of headless bloody corpses that he came across showed the futility of that approach. They had thought of this place of a fortress, believed it impregnable, but it was nothing more that a large killing ground, hunting grounds for the Yautja, and they were systematically wiping out the defenders. The humans had thought themselves the hunters, but the brutally efficient aliens were showing them how misguided they had been in their belief.

She caught up with him in one of the basements, catching sight of him from her perch crouched atop one of the emergency power generators. She watched with cold amusement as he scrambled through the cavernous chamber, stumbling over bodies and bouncing off the machinery and pipes that filled it. She magnified the view in her mask to get a close up of his face, the thermal view she used automatically without thinking highlighting the patterns of heat that showed him flushed and in terror.

She activated the target lock system slaved to the plasma weapon over her shoulder and waited for the three red bars to come down and flash over the image of Issotti, but he ducked into a side room before she could complete the lock on him and she cursed to herself. She vaulted down from the generator agilely, turning her cloak off as she did so, and stalked towards the doorway the mob boss had evaded her through, reaching down and removing the telescoping spear clipped to her thigh.

She stopped short as she reached the doorway, the sight inside making her blood run cold. Stacked from floor to ceiling were ammunition boxes, cases and large crates, her _prey_ had managed to find himself an arms storage room. Cautiously she scanned the inside of the room, quickly locating the panic-stricken mob boss, but the scan showed he seemed to remain unarmed. Confused, she held back, analyzing the situation and looking for a trap. It took her a moment before she understood that Issotti was so far gone into his fear he probably didn't even realize the arsenal he had at his disposal at the moment.

As she considered the situation, Issotti caught sight of her outlined in the doorway and let out a gibbering cry, clutching the air either side of him as he backed away, babbling nonsensical noises. She stepped into the room, gripping the spear in her hand in that peculiar manner that caused it to extend to its full deadly length with a metallic _shiing_.

"Not quite so coky now, huh Issotti? Do you feel it, the fear you put in others?" she asked, her voice cold and metallic through her mask's amplifiers. His only response was to begin to whimper, fragments of pleading for mercy just distinguishable. She stepped forwards once more, deliberately and slow, and he cowered back more.

She paused as in his flailing one of his hands knocked into a partially opened crate. Frantically he grabbed inside, searching for whatever he could find, to be rewarded by bringing up a small spherical object. Grenade! She stood as he feverishly grasped at it and pulled the pin out before holding it aloft, seaty hands keeping the spoon depressed as he held it aloft.

"Stay away! I'll drop it, I will! This place will blow sky high!" he screeched, manic confidence returning as he tried to take control of the situation. She watched impassively as he continued to back away, deeper into the storage room, but tensed as she heard a familiar skittering.

"Issotti, stop where you are. There's a _kainde amedha_ somewhere in here." He looked at her, doubt clouding his eyes for a moment.

"A what?"

"The alien that you were keeping and let loose. I can hear it." As she spoke she rapidly cycled through her mask's vision modes, trying to detect the signature of the alien. _There!_ She caught a glimpse of the curved head of the black skinned alien through a gap between crates, perilously close to Issotti, and moving towards him. She wasn't the only one hunting the portly Italian.

"Come to me. I promise you I'll kill you quick and clean. If the alien gets hold of you, your death will be neither." She tried to reason with him, nervously eying the grenade he still held, but he was too far gone into his insanity, his overbearing bluster and confidence returning, buoyed by the explosives in his hand. She stepped backwards towards the doorway she had entered, and he took it as a sign that he had the upper hand, oblivious to the more pressing threat moving stealthily towards him.

"That's it bitch, you ain't that hot!" he crowed, but she paid him scant attention, watching behind him as she backed further towards the doorway. No matter what she did, there was no way to take the crazed mob boss out without him dropping the grenade, risking a chain reaction with all the ammunition and explosives crammed into the room. Likewise, she had nothing she could use against the _kainde amedha_ that didn't risk the same results. She needed to withdraw to safety, this was going to be a mess whatever happened and her only option was self-preservation.

She was still inside the room when it came into full view, glistening head emerging from behind a stack of crates ominously close to the oblivious crime lord. It let out a low hiss, and he stopped his advance, turning slowly and looking up as the alien raised itself up tall, tail poised behind and above. He let out a whimpered "Mommy!" as the alien struck, darting forwards and impaling its inner jaws deep into the mobster's skull. As she saw the grenade fall from the man's spasming hand, she could hear the distinct _ping!_ of the spoon releasing, and she turned and dived through the doorway.

She rolled to one side and got to her feet, sprinting towards the generator she had used as her perch earlier. As she rounded it's looming bulk, her world went red and white in a flash, the concussion wave following a moment later throwing her to the ground like a broken doll.

Dust and debris swirled around her, and she cried out as fragments of wall and ammunition crashed by her, punching into her armor as she tried to crawl further behind the machinery for safety. With dizzying speed, her world flipped upside down and went black.

She opened her eyes then closed them again as the light being shone into them pierced through, reminiscent of the pain the destruct device mounted in her closet had caused the first time she had looked into it. She waved her hands feebly, before realizing that her mask was missing. Her hands made contact with the warm leathery skin of an alien, and she relaxed, recognizing it as Yautja. Tentatively she opened her eyes again a fraction, then wider as she made sure the light was no longer being shone into them, and was greeted with a familiar sight – the healer bent over her.

She glanced around and saw the healer wasn't alone, the rest of the Yautja hunting party surrounded her, crouched down and watching. She coughed as a swirl of dust passed by, and gratefully took a sip of fluid the healer pressed against her lips. Gingerly she sat up and looked around.

The generator had saved her life, without it's massive metal bulk there was no way she could have survived the blast. The basement had been trashed completely, and several of the walls showed huge holes and signs of imminent collapse. She peered around the side of the generator towards the storage room, growning in pain as her abused body complained that it wasn't ready to move, but all she could see was a mound of concrete brought down in the blast. She turned and looked towards the Elder in concern.

"There was a _kainde amedha_ in there just before the explosion, it killed the last of my _prey_. The Elder's head turned quickly as she spoke, the Second standing and moving swiftly towards the rubble. She didn't need the translator in her mask to understand the Second's eventual evaluation.

"The room is completely destroyed, solid debris and damage fill it. The explosion brought down a large section of building into the room. It is unlikely anything could have survived the explosion or the collapse." The Elder growled an acknowledgment, and as the Second returned to the group he looked towards her. She grinned at him warmly.

"I think we made a mess here."

-

* * *

-

The time for her to make her decision was closer, too close. Almost every waking moment she thought about it, torn in two directions. The Yautja could sense the conflict within her, and wisely kept their distance as her temper became shorter. 

The ship was repaired, another hunting party had picked up the signal from the beacon launched days ago and swung past the planet to hand over the replacement parts needed for the deep space drive, the originals on board her ship having been destroyed when the _kainde amedha_ had attacked weeks ago.

It hadn't been difficult for the Yautja to find new _prey_ to hunt – it had only been a few days since the battle at the _pyode amedha_ bad blood's fortress before more came into the area to take it over, recreating the supply of illegal goods and services once controlled by the most powerful criminal figures in the city. Their position and power had done them no good, the skulls of two sat presented proudly within her trophy vault, the blank empty eye sockets staring silently into her chamber each time she opened the protective shield that kept the trophies safe, to look on them, or to add to their number. The third had been lost in the fiery destruction he himself had unleashed.

Things were coming to a head, she knew. The Elder, through the Second, had been dropping more unsubtle hints that she needed to make her mind up quickly as time went on. The Second, understanding perhaps better than anyone the dilemma she faced, tried unsuccessfully to draw her into conversation about it, to help her talk through the decision. Each time he left with the Yautja equivalent of exasperation, but he would not force the issue, none of them would. This was a decision she had to make on her own.

Should she stay, or should she leave along with the others on the ship?

To have been invited to leave with them to begin with had been a shock to her – Yautja deemed her worthy of joining them, and the ship, as a hunter. As a species, the proud and harsh aliens were not prone to making such offers casually, and she knew that it was possibly the highest compliment she could ever be paid.

But if she left, that would mean abandoning her promises and purposes to be _prey_ fitting for her trainer. He had invested over twenty years of his time, their time, in getting her close to the stage where he would consider her worthy to hunt. If she left, what would that mean for him? Her mind kept flashing back to two conversations she had been part of, with two people now dead.

The first was with Marisa, who had pointed out that all she needed to do to avoid being hunted was to not improve, not get "better". She had explained to her closest friend that she couldn't do that, but hadn't been able to explain why. The truth of the matter was, she knew in her heart that to try to avoid the consequences would be a failure all of itself.

The second was with Blade, the ship's weaponsmaster who had been killed fighting the _kainde amedha_ on board the ship. She had promised him she would be the best _prey_ she could be.

The decision would have been easy for a Yautja, or for a _pyode amedha_, although they would have taken different courses. Her place, in her heart, made the choice harder. She straddled the two worlds – Yautja and human – and it was tearing her moral compass to shreds.

The near-Yautja side of her said to stay behind, fulfill the destiny and complete the path she had set for herself decades ago. The near-_pyode amedha_ side said to run, stay with the Yautja and travel the universe, let something else further on be the one to claim her as its kill.

Two choices, two outcomes, two versions of her life warring to exist.

She sat on the edge of her bed, surrounded by the multicolored furs of nameless alien creatures that were her bedding, looking at her trophies on the wall. The dead eyes of the two crime lords stared back at her, offering no counsel.

Sleep wasn't easy for her that night. But she found it eventually, and in the morning woke with her decision at last.

-

They stood outside the ship, heat shimmers rising from the ground as the air was warmed by the thruster openings in the underside, the ship powering up for its departure.

"We will keep your trophies for you, young blood. When we next return, we look forwards to you reclaiming them, or remembering you through them." The Elder's voice held a strong note of pride, and she inclined her head. The Second placed a claw on her shoulder as the Elder stepped back.

"You are certain of your path?" She growled in assent.

"I have to stay. If I were to leave with you, it would be turning my back on him. There's nothing to say that he'll think I'm ready before you guys come again anyhow. And" she grinned mischievously, "look at it this way. If he does and I win the hunt, you'll be able to decide who gets to challenge me next!". They all laughed at that, but the Second's reply was sombre.

"I think that I would rather hunt beside you than hunt you, young blood. You may not be Yautja, but I am not certain that you are entirely _prey_ any more." To their surprise, the Elder growled his agreement with the Second, and tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. Impulsively she reached around, forgetting protocol, and hugged the Second, then after a moment's hesitation, did the same for the Elder. Both Yautja understood the sign of affection, the Elder even trying to return it, awkwardly, but then they froze.

"Cally." Her own voice, a loop recording. She turned slowly, and as the others stepped back respectfully she found herself looking into her trainer's naked face. He purred with pleasure, raising one clawed hand and putting it on her shoulder firmly. She hesitantly returned the gesture, and the two of them stood there facing each other for a long moment.

He growled something to her, and she raised the mask to her face, pressing against it with her free hand to activate the system and the translator.

"Honored _prey_, young blood. You have gone far beyond my training, or of these others. I questioned if it was possible for a _pyode amedha_ to reach the standards of Yautja, but you have shown that it is possible." He paused and growled a Yautja equivalent of a chuckle. "In very isolated instances, at least." The Yautja behind her clicked soft laughter, and the Elder stepped forwards until he stood beside her, the Second taking up station on the other side.

"She is ready?" the Second asked, quietly. She tried to restrain the trembling that threatened to overcome her as her trainer looked at her, then growled an assent, but held up one clawed hand.

"She is ready, yes, and because of that I give her the choice. She may leave with your ship, with my blessings." She gasped, the sound amplified by her mask and echoing around them. Her trainer looked at her and clicked in amusement before continuing. "Or she may stay behind, and complete the task she set for herself so long ago. She has earned the right to make this choice, as a blooded hunter."

Her head swam as she tried to process this. He was giving her the chance to leave with the Elder and Second? She thought quickly before answering.

"I'd be happy to hunt with the Elder and his ship." She paused as she watched them all incline their heads, before she held her own hand up. "In time. But that time is _not yet_." They stood there stunned, before her trainer began to laugh, an eerie echo of a human laugh, deep and grating. The Elder and Second both joined in, and she smiled then, behind her mask. She had chosen her path.

She raised her head up proudly and stepped forwards. Her trainer made to leave, but before she followed she turned to face the Elder and Second, then inclined her head, her wrists crossed in front of her chest, before straightening up to their growls of acknowledgment. With a spring to her step, she jogged to catch up with her trainer, and the last sight the two Yautja had of them was as both figures wavered and vanished into the darkness as they activated their cloaks.


	26. Sum quod eris, fui quod sis

**Sum quod eris, fui quod sis**

He had no difficulty in finding the ship, the cloak that hid it from prying eyes flowed in iridescent patterns of energy to the sight his facemask provided him. He reached across to the computer mounted on one wrist and tapped a combination of keys, and watched as the ramp lowered from the ship's underside to the ground. He limped up the ramp, triggering the control to close it again once he was inside, lest the dull red light from within be noticed. As he entered the main chamber, he noticed her out of the corner of his eye, standing in the doorway from the living quarters.

He ignored her for the moment, the deep cuts covering most of his body and the jagged gash in his thigh needed to be dealt with first. He could feel her eyes on him as he removed the medical kit from the back of his armor, but she said nothing, content instead to watch. Part of his mind registered with amusement her flinch as he roared from the pain as he applied the blue liquid, the regenerating gel.

As he calmed down, the pain receding from the injection he administered once his wounds were sealed, he saw she was self-consciously pressing a hand to her chest, rubbing it in pain remembered.

"Wasn't as easy as you thought, I guess, was it?" she asked him acidly. He cocked his head at her curiously, and she pointed to his wounds. He growled his annoyance. He hadn't expected it to be easy.

"So where will you put it?" she asked, her voice tight. He stepped up to the Trophy vault and pressed against the control to retract the protective shield. He looked at the contents for a moment, before moving to one end.

"I think ... yes, right here." She couldn't understand him, but he wasn't talking for her. He stepped back from the wall, and gazed proudly down at the new addition.

It was flanked on either side by a pair of _kainde amedha_ skulls, those of Queens. Bleached white and clean, it rested on a support bracket that held it tilted backwards slightly, round eye holes stared up as a pale yellow hand stroked the forehead ridge softly. He reached into a small belt pouch and brought out a long single braid of _pyode amedha_ hair, and after running its hand along the length, draped the faded reddish braid over the bracket in front of the skull.

"Honored and worthy prey indeed", he said, reverently, crouching down to get a better look at his fresh trophy.

"I'm going to kill you", she said, softly.

He looked across at her, his head cocked to one side.

"I'm going to kill you", she repeated.

He stood, flexing his wrist to extend the jagged twin blades of death from their place mounted to his forearm. In three quick strides he was on her, blade tips dimpling the skin under her chin. He growled low at her. She looked up at him.

"I'm going to kill you", she repeated again.

He looked at her, then reached down to his waist with his other hand while the blade points pricked her skin to draw tiny droplets of blood. She stared up at him unblinkingly. He removed something from his hip, handed it to her then drawing back, retracting his wrist blades.

"Take it", a loop recording.

She looked down and turned the object over in her hands, noting the silver-in-black of the eyeshields, the intricate detail work on the surface, the _-TT-_ scorched into the forehead, before walking past him towards the ramp. As she reached the top and pressed against the black panel that would cause it to open, she turned to face him.

"I'm going to kill you", she repeated once more. He clicked a laugh, and as she descended the ramp his loop recorder spoke once more.

"_Not yet_"

_**Acta est fabula plaudite**_


End file.
